


Silence

by halloa_what_is_this



Series: Aborted Wings [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Dubious Consent, M/M, Permanent mutilation, Sherlock/The Piano - Fusion, The Piano - Freeform, Themes of implicit voyerism, Victorian Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halloa_what_is_this/pseuds/halloa_what_is_this
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1850, John is a mute young man forced to marry to save his father from indebtedness. His sister as his interpreter and his piano to keep him company, he travels to London to live with his husband James Moriarty. Without John's consent, James sells the piano to his friend Sherlock Holmes, who only asks for lessons from John in return. The lessons turn into a power play between the two when Sherlock proposes a deal: John may earn his piano back one key at a time, certain conditions attached.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No Life Treads Silently

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, [Sharon](http://sherlottered.tumblr.com/) and [Roxy](http://reichebach.tumblr.com/) for support, love and beta-ing!
> 
> Credit for the direct quotes from the film go to Jane Campion.

_The voice you hear is not my speaking voice, but my mind’s voice. I know you are uncomfortable with my silence, the stare that seems to look straight into your soul, and the words you fancy you hear sometimes, like echoes in the darkness. You are scared of what you cannot see._

_Unlike you, I am not afraid of darkness. I play with it. I lie down on the grass in the garden and spread my fingers in front of my eyes. Pretending I am blind gives me such freedom. It is such a hauntingly beautiful thought that if something would happen,_ _causing me to lose my sight and leave me mute in the darkness,_ _I would only have my music to keep me company._

_I have not spoken since I was six years old, though no one knows why, not even me. My father says my silence is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breathing will be my last._

_But I don’t consider myself silent. That is because of my piano. My father admires me for it, this ability to take vowels and consonants and translate them into such beautiful tunes. He loves to hear me play, and I indulge him upon request._

“Play for me, John,” the old man says from his chair by the fire. It is a cold January evening, the house already prepared for the night and most of its inhabitants asleep in their beds. Young Harriet, who had assured her father and brother that she could stay up as long as they could, has dozed off in the other armchair. Her hands are tucked under her skirts and her feet do not touch the floor, so small is she and so large the chair.

She had changed her shoes to roller skates after dinner, and had driven her nurse mad by gliding from one room to the other, banging doors closed as she passed by them in the halls. They had taken her ice skates to town to get them sharpened and whilst she still could not take her little wheels outside, she chose to upset everyone except her brother by making as much of a ruckus as possible by skating indoors.

John has been looking at her eyelids fluttering open and closed for the past half an hour, ready to go and take her upstairs to bed when she finally drifts off completely. Having counted five full minutes without Harriet making any other noise but a gentle snuffling, her eyelids moving rapidly in time with what clearly is a very vivid dream, John shakes himself to brush off the sleepiness that has crawled into his bones after sitting still for so long by the warm fire. He is about to rise and take Harriet upstairs, when his father’s soft voice breaks the silence.

“Play for me, John.”

John, who had thought his father to be half-asleep himself, is slightly startled by the sudden sound. Turning round, Captain Watson’s eyes are on him, somehow more intent than usual.

_‘Should I take Harriet to bed first?’_ he asks his father.

_‘Let her be,’_ he signs back. _‘She is sleeping like a log. She will not be disturbed by your playing.’_

So John takes his place in front of the piano and plays something he knows his father will enjoy. He has always been proficient in reading his father’s moods, and though tonight Captain Watson seems different, more distant, John knows exactly what to play. He performs one of his father’s favourites, and the atmosphere in the room changes subtly, the gentle notes almost visible in the silent night air, colours deepening and the warmth and security of home encasing them in a vivid cocoon.

He only stops playing when Captain Watson touches his shoulder.

“Thank you, John. Now take your sister upstairs and then return. I wish to speak with you.”

This is not unusual, this urge of his father’s to share his worries with his son. He is, after all, the heir to the house and lands, and his father finds him a good and compassionate listener. So he lifts Harriet into his arms, the little girl only snuffling lightly into his neck when picked up from her warm spot, and carries her upstairs to her nurse. In order to make sure the roller skates will be there for Harriet’s joy tomorrow as well, he slips them off her feet and hides them under the bed while the nurse busies herself with preparing the room for the night.

He returns to the parlour to see his father seated at the small table, letters scattered in front of him. John stands patiently next to the chair, while Captain Watson peruses a particularly long piece of correspondence. John only takes a peak to see the letter is dated a week earlier and sent from Fenton House, London.

In order to not seem intrusive, he lets his eyes wander round the parlour, pausing at the portraits over the fireplace. Looking at the pictures of his ancestors in the dark makes him chuckle; the portraits have such a gloomy air round them even in daylight, but at night their tenants look like they could pounce out of the picture at any moment and devour the unfortunate progenies living their lives unaware of the hateful curse of their ancestors.

This he shall tell Harriet sometime. She loves the ghost stories he invents for her, especially if they involve the crooked-nosed great-grandmother whose portrait hangs just outside Harriet’s door. She would have had ink moustache drawn on her several times already had John not been there to stop his sister.

His attention is drawn back to his father when he clears his throat and asks John to sit with a wave of his hand.

“John,” Captain Watson starts, not looking at his son but at the letters on the table but his voice full of affection, “you are aware of my troubles with the house.”

John nods, confident that his father is inspecting him from the corner of his eye. The books are open on the table among the letters, and John can see the desperation in his father’s handwriting as he has marked down every sum spent and gained, trying to make ends meet in a household far too large for his officer’s pension.

“You know I would give you anything you wanted, even if I could not afford it. I would give anything I have to make sure you and Harriet are happy.”

John grasps his shaking hand and his father squeezes back with all the strength an old man can manage.

“I have received a marriage proposal,” Captain Watson continues, and John stiffens.

“From a James Moriarty. He has a large house in London called Fenton House, and he has asked for your hand.”

Captain Watson must feel the surprise through the compulsive twitch in John’s hand, for he finally raises his gaze from the papers on the table to meet his son’s.

“I could not accept before I spoke to you, John. He has several estates, 5000 pounds a year and he seems to be a very admirable man.”

_Seems?_

Licking his lips, John begins to sign with his free hand,

_‘I am happy and humbled that you have arranged such an honourable match for me. But if I marry this Mr Moriarty, wouldn’t I have to leave home and go live with him in London?’_

“Yes,” his father answers, squeezing his hand.

_‘And I would have to leave you and Harriet behind?’_

“No,” another squeeze follows, “Harriet would accompany you. You will need an interpreter, at least in the beginning. I have explained the situation to Mr Moriarty, and he says your muteness does not bother him in the least. Here, read this.”

He hands one of the letters to John, dated four months prior.

John reads the paragraph that his father is pointing at, wondering how long he has been planning this arrangement.

_Dear Sir,_ the letter reads, _I assure you that my love for your son cannot be changed by such meagre fact as his inability to speak. God loves dumb creatures so why not I?_

_I understand your concern for his well-being at my home and whether he will have company who will not consider him a stranger. I can promise you he will be graced with so many visitors he will be relieved when they leave._

_Regarding the issue of his sister accompanying him here, I am delighted to tell you that the arrangements for her room and a search for a governess to tutor her have already commenced. There has not been a child on the grounds since I was myself only a boy, and my whole household is awaiting her arrival with eagerness._

John blinks. This man does in fact sound delightful.

Placing the letter on the table frees his right hand again so that he can speak with his father. His left is still within both of Captain Watson’s hands.

_‘Is he a religious man?’_

“I do believe so,” Captain Watson answers.

John raises his eyebrow.

_‘Surely, such an important detail…’_

“He has been talking excessively about you,” his father interrupts gently. “For me, that kind of interest in his future husband has the utmost importance.”

Biting his lip, John turns to the fire. He knows nothing of this man, yet he seems gentle and caring enough, and if he will take care of him and Harriet, perhaps even arrange Harriet’s marriage when the time comes, there is nothing more he could hope for.

Captain Watson releases John’s hand and reaches out to grasp his son’s face.

“You have such a strong soul, John, such a strong will. It is a blessing, but it is also good to control it. You have always done what is best for your family, and I am so sorry it has come to this, that I have to ask you to do something that may be against your will. I cannot guarantee your happiness anymore, but I am sure Mr Moriarty can. He can strengthen your will with his love and give you the protection and security you require.”

John lifts his hand again.

_‘It is not against my will, father. I would gladly do this for you._ _’_

\\\

In the months it takes to arrange John and Harriet’s relocation to London, Mr Moriarty has time to send dozens of letters to his beloved. He has begun the intimate correspondence three weeks after Captain Watson has confirmed John’s eagerness for the marriage, and the letters are full of such sweet words that they make John chuckle with their saccharinity.

_My dear,_ one of them says, _the 340 miles between us feel like 34,000 and the hours I count until I finally see you seem to continually increase instead of decreasing. I keep your portrait round my neck in a locket I had made especially, always close to my heart, hardly ever able to contain my enthusiasm when showing your picture to visitors. I must say, the few friends that still dare to visit my house have admirably attempted not to mention the words ‘marriage’, ‘fiancé’ or ‘wedding’, and I try to control myself as well and not to speak extensively of the decorations or the menu I have planned for the reception._

_I am sure you will love your new home! I have arranged a room for your sister and a private chamber for yourself, if you would like your piano to be placed somewhere where you can practise in peace. Though it would bring me great joy, if you would bring it to the parlour and entertain us with your playing in the evenings._

_Yours, James._

Harriet has been peaking over his shoulder, reading the letter when he has not noticed, and now she opens her mouth.

“You will have _two_ rooms?” she whines indignantly. “Why can’t I have two as well? Or three! I need as much space as you do, if not more.”

_‘That is only because you collect every stick and stone that comes across your way and hide them in your room so Matilda won’t find them.’_

“You could give me the other room, Johnny!” Harriet shrieks in his ear. She is now hanging on to his shoulders, squeezing his neck from behind with her arms. “He says you can put the piano in the parlour. You don’t need the other room.”

John stands up and takes a hold of her waist. He throws her over his head, onto the bed where he has been sitting reading the letter, and tickles her waist. Her shrieks of laughter bring in the nurse Matilda, who is more than glad that the girl is to travel to London to live in a grand house where she would grow up to be a well-behaving young lady.

 

 

More letters follow, each filled to the brim with sweet words and promises of a good life, which make John more than a little suspicious. He wants to believe in the dignity of this man, and for the sake of his father he stays quiet regarding his suspicions about Mr Moriarty’s honesty.

Harriet sees his uncertainty, of course. She reads the letters as well, screwing her eyes shut she tries to conjure up a picture of what a James Moriarty would look like. She has known a James once, a stable boy, with a curly, blonde hair, yet somehow this image does not fit this new James.

She packs her things slowly, mostly letting Matilda perform the task, and sits by her window during long afternoons and evenings, looking at the moor, hoping that she may not miss it as much in the buzzing of London if she has the memory of mist and grass imprinted on her mind.

The minute a new letter arrives, she will jump up from whatever she is doing, run to John and read the letter when he is finished. She does not always understand all of it, but does not want to bother John by asking. She looks up the hardest words from a dictionary she has found in her father’s study, but it does not help her to understand the intent in James Moriarty’s letters.

She compares them to the ones her father receives from bankers, friends and associates but while they all have even harder words and their explanations in the dictionary confuse her, the tone is always the same: blank and to the point. They are polite but cold at the same time, familiar words of civility only there to soften the facts.

She likes facts, they are easy to understand. She knows that sky is blue, though perhaps not exactly why, and that ponies eat grass and rabbits eat carrots. They are universally acknowledged facts that nobody doubts. But it is as if James Moriarty has taken it into his head that sky is actually green and bunnies and ponies eat Christmas pudding. She feels as if he has turned something familiar upside down and now tries to convince other people he is right.

She does not yet understand a lie.


	2. The Idle Ground

“What is he going to call me?”

_‘You are his sister-in-law. He will call you Harriet.’_

“And what should I call him?”

_‘He is to be your brother. You may call him James.’_

“Why? He is not even my real brother. We are not blood related, and you don’t really love him. You are only doing this because papa told you to.”

John turns away from her to look out of the window, leaning his chin on his palm.

The landscape outside has stayed the same for hours. They are only halfway through their journey, and Harriet is already bored with everything and has started to bother John with questions, pestering him for answers he does not wish to give.

Harriet, sensing her brother’s mood, reaches for his hand apologetically. Her palm touches the cold slice of silver on John’s middle finger, and she scratches at the unfamiliar object with a pout. It had arrived in the last letter from Mr Moriarty, accompanied by the shortest note he had written so far.

 _Patience_ , it had said, and signed with his initials.

Inside the ring, there was an engraving of John’s name and the day they were to be wed.

“Is the young gentleman recently married?” asks an elderly lady sitting in front of them in strong Glaswegian accent. She has been eyeing their signing with great interest since the beginning of the journey, burying herself deeper into the furs she has chosen to cover herself with against the spring cold.

“Not yet, but soon,” replies Harriet. “To a rich and handsome man, and we are to live in a grand old house in London with ghouls and our piano and 5000 pounds ---“

John pinches her sharply on her thigh. The woman inspects him under her thick brows. He knows exactly what she is thinking, he can hear her thoughts like stabs.

She believes his father has taken the first available offer to marry him off and live far from home because he cannot get anyone to marry a dumb son.

Like everyone else, she pities him, and he hates her for it.

He turns his gaze back to the landscape.

Harriet, never quiet and always accustomed to her brother’s moods, straightens herself on her seat.

“And is your brother looking forward to seeing London?”

“Why don't you ask him?”

The woman’s shoulders slump and her face falls. She glances at John quickly, before turning to look out of the window herself.

Harriet reaches out to touch John’s elbow to get his attention.

_‘I have decided. I am not going to call him James. I am not going to call him anything. I am not even going to look at him.’_

 

 

\\\

“Are you not at all interested what my new fiancé will be like?

James Moriarty sits in one of the two armchairs in the sitting room of his friend, a wooden locket open on his palm. Inside the locket there is a picture of John, gaze turned away from the camera, looking distant and almost angry, as if he wants to be anywhere else but locked inside a box hidden in a man’s pocket.

“I am sure he is wonderful,” Sherlock Holmes says from the table where he is busying himself with his science equipment.

“Oh, but I _am_ going to miss the life of a bachelor!” James sighs, lifting his legs on the coffee table between the teapot and cups. “You know of course that I will be getting a little monkey in the deal as well?”

“I do believe the proper term is ‘sister-in-law,’” Sherlock says, careful to add only three drops of acid into the vial of liquid, which begins to hiss and foam instantly. He lifts the vial into the light, smirks triumphantly and goes to his notebook.

James sighs and leans his head against the backrest of his chair.

“It’s good to have some company other than yours. Though I cannot really call it company since you rarely bother with conversation. You are only interested in blowing things to pieces with your projects and catching murderers.”

“I do come and see you at Fenton and listen to you rant about the expenses of the house. Is that not companionable enough? Besides, your spouse will not be doing much conversing with you either without his little helper.”

There is such a filthy chuckle that Sherlock lifts his gaze from his scribbles.

“Oh, I think our conversations will be monosyllabic at best for the first month or so. Why do you think they call it ‘honeymoon’ if not for the sweetness of the beginning?”

Sherlock’s expression turns icy.

“There is an etymological dictionary in the shelf. Seek for answers there,” he says turning back to his acids.

James laughs joyfully. He leans forward in his chair, eyes burning with satisfaction as he inspects his friend.

“Forgive me. I had forgotten that you have chosen to abstain yourself from earthly pleasures. Why, you hardly eat or sleep while working! One must wonder how you satisfy the more carnal urges.”

He looks back to the locket. With John’s eyes turned away from the camera, he feels like he can peruse as much as he likes. He drags his thumb over John’s face, imagining hot blushed cheeks under his fingers, he leaves a smudgy fingerprint on the glass. He reaches for a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe it clean. The light from the window shines on the surface, his own eyes suddenly staring back at him, John’s features unfocused. He goes to his pocket and takes out a foldable comb to brush his hair back.

Every strand in place, he glances up at Sherlock, at his messy curls and unshaven cheeks. His face is red with excitement. Whatever he has seen in the gently foaming acid must have pleased him greatly.

“Oh, yes,” James sighs. “Some intellectual company would do me much good. You know he plays the piano? Has been trained since he was four or five.”

“You have informed me,” Sherlock mutters at his microscope, gazing into the lens to inspect a piece of handkerchief. The cloth is presumably stained with the blood of a young man found dead in an alley the night before, clothes cut to pieces and scattered round him, all stained in blood and the grime of several stomping boots.

Sherlock smiles to himself. It is possible, that the blood on the handkerchief is not from the dead boy currently lying in the morgue, but from someone who suffers from chronic nosebleeds but is likely still very much alive somewhere in London.

In the sitting room, James sighs and begins to fiddle with the locket. The glass surface catches a ray of sun and shines directly into Sherlock’s eye. James grins.

 

 

\\\

It is getting dark in the train and the gas lamps are being lit all over the compartment. Harriet has fallen asleep against John’s shoulder, which is swinging and shaking in time with the speeding train rattling on the tracks. Still, the girl sleeps soundly, but John is wide awake. He keeps his eyes pointedly to the window, though he can barely see anything other than his own reflection against the darkness outside.

An elderly gentleman with a monocle has got on the train in Birmingham. He has attempted a conversation with John, but even with Harriet ready to interpret, he has turned his attention quickly to the lady in furs and they have been conversing ever since. Their discussion of the wedding ring on John’s finger and the sleeping child in his arms has been quiet but distinct in John’s ears who they must believe to be deaf as well as mute for they have not bothered to cover their words or glances excessively.

John stares at his reflection. He looks tired, miserable, defeated. The word ‘grateful’ is mouthed several times by the couple sitting across from him, and he inspects himself, trying to dispel any trace of ingratitude from his eyes.

Harriet is right, he is only doing this for their father.

He is almost thrown straight against the man opposite him when the train suddenly slows down, and Harriet awakes with a sharp shriek. John grasps her waist to prevent her from hitting the floor. The quiet compartment is now full of talk, babies crying and ladies gasping and looking round frantically. The lady in furs is being comforted by the man in the monocle who is patting her right hand, the left resting on her heart.

“My goodness, what happened?”

Everyone else is thinking the same, questions flying round, several men standing up to find a conductor to inquire if the train has broken down. While others lean out through the windows to see if there is something wrong with the tracks, Harriet pulls at John’s sleeve and exclaims excitedly,

“Train robbers!”

The lady in furs yelps and pats her heart forcefully. No train robbers enter, but the conductor who informs them that the train lines are cut. This is met with the expected angry exclamations and protests, silenced by the conductor’s raised voice that promises carriage rides for passengers who wish to continue their journey from where they currently are to the next town where another train will take them to London via different route.

The train fills with a buzzing chatter, as everyone starts collecting their luggage. John turns to Harriet and signs,

_‘Ask the conductor to come here.’_

She goes and leads the man to their seats by tugging his sleeve. John continues to sign,

_‘What will happen to the train?’_

She repeats the question.

“Well,” says the man scratching his head, “right now there is no other possibility than to wait for a crew to arrive and fix the tracks. Until then, the train is stuck.”

_‘You cannot return along the tracks and take another route?’_

“We considered it, yessir, but because of the heavy winter we are having, several other lines have been cut as well. Even if we backed up until we found another line, we would be on the way of the oncoming traffic. Don’t worry, sir. The other train will get you safely to London, only with a few hours’ delay.”

_‘What about my piano?’_

The conductor looks at Harriet, unsure that he has heard right.

“Piano?” He sways between them for a moment, trying to decide who to address his speech, eventually turning to Harriet. “We have barely the means to get the passengers and their luggage away from here. We cannot possible move a piano.”

"Then we shall stay," replies Harriet, turning to help John who has already abandoned the conversation as futile and began to collect their things.

“Stay?” exclaims the conductor.  “On the train? No, you can't do that. We have to get the train to the nearest depot and we can't take any passengers on board. It is best if you just leave the piano here for now. It will be delivered to you later.”

“He says that whatever vague reasons you have for not taking us with you only promise that he will probably never see the piano again and that the least you can do is help us carry it out from the train,” Harriet interprets without a breath.

The conductor and the remaining passengers, who have stopped to observe the queer conversation, look at the small child and the tight-mouthed man who stands next to her, ready with the luggage, waiting for the conductor to make up his mind.

 

 

Several men are needed to carry the piano to the field they have stopped on, and all the time John moves round it to see that they do not dent it. It is lowered down, and whilst Harriet begins to pull out warm clothes from the luggage, John places the piano stool in front of the instrument and sits down on it. The conductor, carrying a pile of blankets, approaches them slowly and places the pile on top of one of the trunks.

“Do you have things for shelter?” he asks Harriet.

He glances at John, who is removing a split piece of wood covering the piano in order to reach the keys.

“We grew up on the moors, we are going to be fine,” Harriet replies.

The man turns to leave, but is stopped when Harriet pulls his sleeve and points to John who makes a small sign with his hand.

“He says ‘thank you’,” Harriet translates.

John has turned back to the piano. Sliding his fingers over the keys he plays a small melody to see if any of the ones he can reach are harmed. The conductor looks at the stern back, leans to Harriet and gives her the lantern he has been carrying, bows and leaves.

He looks over his shoulder when he reaches the train. The lantern is shining on the piano, and in its light he can see the mute man still sitting in front of it, fingers running over the keys, and the little girl pulling a woollen shirt over his head.

 

 

\\\

They are gathering stakes to make a rudimentary tent using the blankets they have in order to protect themselves from the possible rain. To protect Harriet at least, for John believes none of the blankets are large enough to provide sufficient shelter for them both.

Excited for all the newness in their lives, Harriet has already gathered proper sticks to hold the blanket whilst John has been standing still, enjoying the darkness. The sounds and smells of the forest are different from the ones back in Scotland, but at least the darkness is the same. Harriet feels it as well for she is not the least afraid of the strange woods but jumps round with the lantern in her hand, inspecting the vegetation and hiding sticks and stones inside the pockets of her dress.

John is still standing still with his eyes closed when she returns to him. She shines the light in his face and waves her hand in front of the lantern to give him a message in Morse code. She giggles, and John smiles at her.

They return to the piano, and with a string he borrows from one of Harriet’s treasure boxes, John teaches her how to make knots that will hold.

They lie under the tent on their backs and look up at the starry sky.

“I am glad the stars are the same here,” Harriet says quietly.

John squeezes her hand. Harriet moves in closer and whispers in his ear,

“Tell me about him.”

 

 

He loves to talk about David with Harriet. She had sat with them for most lessons until she was old enough to start playing herself and then John had sat and listened. With her in the room, they had no reason to hide for she loved having a secret with her older brother and she loved David like family.

_‘I’ve told you about him a thousand times. You were there yourself.’_

“Oh, but tell me again,” Harriet wheedles. “Was he your teacher?”

He squeezes her nose and nods.

“How did you speak to him?”

_‘I didn’t need to speak. I could lay thoughts out in his mind like they were a sheet.’_

Harriet sighs in delight. Then she grows more solemn.

“What happened? Why didn’t you go to papa and ask him to let you get married?”

_‘He became frightened and stopped listening.’_

He has told the story in the same words so many times, and it still pains him.

In Harriet’s mind, the image of David has already blurred into a concept more than a discernible image of a human being. She remembers him as tall, dark-haired and handsome, like all men she encounters who are under five-and-thirty and allow her a smile. She remembers his fingers, how they ran over the keys of the piano or repeated signs after her so he could surprise John by speaking in signs with him.

John remembers his fingers as well, on the piano and making the few signs he had time to learn before he left. He remembers the fingers in different circumstances to Harriet. Gentle fingers entwining with his, sliding under his clothes the few times they had a chance to be alone in the parlour, running along his skin, making him gasp and shiver despite the warmth of a fire.

 

 

\\\

James barges in the sitting room just when Sherlock has climbed on the sofa and began to pin the new crime scene photos on the wall to accompany the old ones already perused a hundred times over. A fresh perspective is necessary, even if it has come with the cost of another victim found and the murderer responsible for yet another life taken.

“Listen to this, my dearest Sherlock! It seems like my fiancé has arranged for trouble even before he has arrived. I have just received a telegram that the line is broken down and they are now stranded in the middle of a field near Bedford. Other passengers were happy to be taken to the next town in carriages to catch another train but my little love bird chose to stay behind because they could not move his precious piano. Isn’t this grand! That’s true Scottish character for you!”

Sherlock looks at him from the collage of photos and notes he has attached to the wall.

“Your fiancé is marooned in a field in the middle of the night in one of the more questionable parts of our country, and yet you have chosen to come to me first. Dear James, I am at loss for why you would do that. I am a consulting detective, not a railway engineer.”

“No need for consultations, dear friend! I have come to tell you that there is a carriage downstairs to take me to the woodland creatures, and you will accompany me!”

“Busy,” Sherlock turns back to stare at the wall, hands pressed together under his chin.

James takes the coat hanging on a nail on the door and shoves Sherlock’s hands into the sleeves.

“Nonsense! You need fresh air, and nothing is fresher than the countryside at five in the morning. You are my groomsman and your duty is to ensure I have fun before my wedding, and this is what I have chosen to entertain myself with.”

 

 

\\\

They arrive in Bedford the next morning after travelling through the night in a carriage. It is easy to find the field the conductor had indicated in his telegram, for the small town had awoken in the middle of the night to a piano being played in the distance, ghoulish melodies filling everyone’s head and heart with a superstitious fear. Now, a farmer points the field out to them, and they set off again.

It is nearing six o’clock and when they reach the campers, they are both still sound asleep. Harriet face down on the blanket that they have spread out under them, John with his arm thrown protectively over her, the engagement ring gleaming in the dawning light. His other hand is wrapped round one of the piano legs.

James smirks wickedly and winks at Sherlock. With his cane tickling John’s stomach, he startles him out of his slumber, bleary eyes staring up at the two men hallowed by the rising sun shining behind them. The one he recognises as his husband looks down at him with a smile. There is something sharp about it, something clever, and he hopes it is a play of the sun in his eye.

The other, taller and even paler than James, watches him with disinterest. His mass of raven curls imitate the smooth hair on James’ head with their colour so well that it could be easy to believe them to be at least distant relations. His hair together with the skin of a ghost and expression of practised distance make them look like brothers.

Harriet stirs next to him on the blanket, but does not wake. John moves to turn her round, but James’ hand on his arm stops him.

“Let her sleep. Poor soul must be exhausted. Mr Holmes can carry her to the brougham.”

Mr Holmes, looking like he would rather do anything but that, cordially receives the little girl in his arms and takes her to the carriage. The child instantly nuzzles her face into his neck and to John’s eyes it looks, for a moment, like the man’s expression actually softens.

Lifting himself up, John brushes off the grass clinging to his clothes, suddenly startled again by James picking twigs from his hair, his hand straying in the golden locks for a moment too long. He smiles down to John with a strange glint in his eyes, not caused by the morning sun this time. He is but a couple of inches taller, but it seems to make such a difference now that John is standing in the middle of a strange field in a foreign country and wearing sleep-rumbled clothing. He takes John’s hand and gives it a firm shake and a kiss on the knuckles that feel frozen from the night of being attached on the leg of the piano.

Blushing at the attention focused on him, John still receives it cordially and also squeezes James’ fingers. James covers his hand with his left while the right is still firmly in John’s grip and welcomes him to England.

“Unfortunate that we could not come earlier. The telegram reached us rather late and we set off immediately. You must be cold. There is a basket inside the carriage and while you wait for your sister to wake up, you may enjoy your morning coffee in the warmth. I will travel with Sherlock on the driver’s seat.”

He turns round to pick up the blanket and a suitcase lying on the ground and when they have placed all the luggage on and in the carriage, James takes John’s hand in his and attempts to lead him inside. John, however, stops and reaches for the tin box hanging about his neck. James looks at him with surprised curiosity, while John writes a note and hands it to him.

_The piano?_

James laughs gently.

“Surely you can see that it is not possible to carry it now? We only have one carriage which is by no means large enough to accommodate a piano. Where would we put it? Inside and let you travel on the top?”

John’s next note interrupts his laughter.

_I’ll stay behind. I cannot leave the piano._

“John,” he says, the gentle flirt still in his voice, “I cannot leave you here for only God himself knows how long. There is a town nearby and the inhabitants would surely provide for you, but I am not the kind of man to leave my betrothed stranded in a miserable village for a few pieces of wood.”

John takes back the note and returns it after scrawling a few lines.

_I cannot leave the piano._

“James,” calls a voice from the carriage. Mr Holmes, who has been sitting in the driver’s seat this whole time, looks as if he intends to leave both of them behind if they do not hurry up.

“We will go to the village and pay a farmer to look after the bloody thing while you arrange for someone to pick it up. If you want to get back to Fenton House before dusk, I suggest you move yourselves _now_.”

He glances at John with no warmth in his eyes whatsoever and takes the reins.

With his friend’s support on his side, James finally leads John into the carriage, closes the door and hops onto the seat next to Sherlock. From the corner of his eye, he sees John’s head peak out of the window for as long as they can still see the piano on the field. When the trees of a small forest block it from sight, he draws back into the comfort of the coach.

James nudges his friend’s shoulder.

“What do you think?”

Sherlock shrugs.

“He only looked tired to me.”

“He is stunted, that’s for sure,” James snickers into his palm. “I never thought he would be so small.”

“You are not so tall yourself,” Sherlock provides.

James laughs with abandon.

“Dearest Sherlock, I have clearly chosen all my company well! I am waiting eagerly for my life with this toy soldier now that I have seen there is some fire in him. Imagine wanting to stay behind for a furniture! I’ll be sure to buy him as many pianos as he can possibly desire and soon he’ll forget the monstrosity that we left behind.”


	3. In The Desolate Walls

During the hours it takes them to reach London, Harriet continues to sleep with her nose pressed in John’s shirt but John does not once close his eyes. He stares out of the window, thinking about the piano and James’ indifference towards it, and startles when the man is suddenly standing in front of him and the silent country roads have changed into a gravel lane, lined by chestnut trees on both sides. In front of a brown brick building, an elderly lady and a younger woman are waiting for them.

Mr Holmes, who has jumped off the carriage the moment they have stopped, is marching towards them. He says something to the older woman, who replies, and he disappears into the house.

“Did you sleep?”

James has that smile again. In the bright sunlight it seems even more wicked, the lines on his face deeper now, making the expression seem like a mask on his face.

Harriet stirs and raises her head.

“Are we there yet?” she asks, voice soft and stuffy.

James offers her his hand.

“Welcome to your new home, little miss. Hope you had a pleasant sleep.”

Harriet shakes the hand, but looks at John with unhidden inquiry.

_‘This is James.’_

John steps out of the carriage to help her down. Her limbs are still heavy with sleep and she stumbles on the step. She falls on James, who catches her and lowers her on the ground.

“Shake that sleep from your toes and walk over there with your brother to say hello to Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper,” he instructs her.

Two servants briskly walk past them on their way to the doors. Once there, the older of the two women spreads her arms in greeting.

“My dear!” she exclaims. “I am so glad to finally have you here!”

She grasps John by the hands and kisses him enthusiastically on both cheeks, then proceeds to shake his hand. John, surprised but touched by this warm welcome, smiles brightly at her. Next, the lady’s hands go for Harriet, who, not being fond of embraces, shakes them enthusiastically before the arms can reach round her.

“I am Mrs Hudson, and this is Miss Hooper, my niece,” she introduces the woman next to her, who curtseys. Harriet, bold in her enthusiasm but limbs still sleep-filled, curtseys even deeper and almost loses her balance.

“James is a dear friend,” Mrs Hudson chatters on. “I knew his parents before he was even born, bless their souls. We live only a few houses down the road. And Mr Holmes” (Mr Holmes dashes past them) “only about 300 yards away on Baker Street.”

Mr Holmes walks briskly to James, who is standing by the carriage, instructing the servants on where to take each suitcase and trunk. Mr Holmes turns to him in passing and says something briefly before striding out of the gates.

“There he goes again,” Mrs Hudson sighs. “Never stands still, that one. Most likely gone off to Scotland Yard to torment that sweet Detective Inspector.”

She tuts and takes John by the hand.

“Come now. I’ll show you the house while James is busying himself with your luggage.”

They start to their left along the path, turn round the corner and arrive at another door. The maid shows them to the entrance hall, which Mrs Hudson describes as ‘quite lovely’, though much smaller than Mr Watson must be used to. As it is merely a city home after all, James has much grander houses in the country that have several sitting rooms and wonderful stables. Mr Watson will love it.

“The renovations are still on-going,” she prattles. “The front entrance was on the south side of the house, but James decided to close it and now we are to go in and out through the east entrance. Fortunately, James finally made the decision to tear down the wall between the drawing room and dining room, and now they are to be one. Come, I’ll show you.”

Behind them follows Harriet who, having inspected Miss Hooper up and down, has come to the conclusion that here is someone she could truly like. She pulls lightly on the hem of her skirt, beckons her to lend her ear to her and whispers,

“Harriet.”

Miss Hooper blushes.

“Molly.”

 

 

\\\

The first night in Fenton House, John lies awake in his bed in the guest bedroom. Harriet, now asleep in the green room, had been very happy with her little closet and her precious objects wilfully scattered on the floor and running to the garden with Miss Hooper at the first chance. Mrs Hudson had shown John to the guestroom where he was to sleep until the wedding.

“James is quite old-fashioned in matters like these,” she had explained quietly. “You are not yet married, so he did not want to startle you and gave you your own room for the time being. Eventually you will be settled in the master bedroom with James and this will become the guest room once more.”

She had shown John to a room directly opposite the staircase.

“This is the library, and your day room where you will have your piano, if you so choose.”

When Mrs Hudson had had her back turned to comment on the bookshelves and the several volumes in them, John stood in the corner where one of the great windows allowed the sun to pour in to lighten the walls. He would place the piano here, just at the window, to be able to see the trees while he played.

The maid had entered the moment all the luggage had been brought in, but John had sent her away with a smile and a note saying she would be much more needed in Harriet’s room. The trunks had been brought directly to the master bedroom, but several of John’s things would be needed for the wedding and had to be washed and ironed before they could be used. Mrs Hudson had offered her helping hand with the unpacking.

In the master bedroom, the sun pouring in from the three large windows and bathing the room in light, John’s eyes had caught something when a ray of sunshine had shone directly on metal and made it sparkle. A polished doorknob was attached to a wall, and upon trying it, John had found that it in fact opened a door to the guestroom.

Closing the door and inspecting the walls, he had observed that the hinges fit perfectly into the wall. If one did not know there was a door there at all, they would not have ever guessed its existence.

Mrs Hudson’s voice had explained from behind him,

“A fancy of the late Mrs Moriarty. The blue room used to be her private day room. She was a night owl, loved to read when the house was quiet, and she would often escape to her sanctuary through the secret door in order to avoid being seen should someone pass her room.”

Awake in his bed, John turns to look at the wall with the invisible door leading to the bedroom of the man with whom he is to spend the nights in the future. He thinks about the man himself, sleeping only a few steps away in the room next door, having wished him good-night at the door hours earlier.

He thinks about his father, now alone in the great house, likely awake as well, surrounded by the dusty books in his library, looking at the moor from the window.

He thinks about his piano, abandoned on the field, unable to shake the longing he feels like a hole in his chest. Closing his eyes he sees the field, hears the piano, a melancholy melody he knows too well played by invisible fingers.

 

 

\\\

Five days after John and Harriet’s arrival, the wedding ceremony takes place in St. John’s Church near Fenton House. Watching the continuous flow of guests walking in through the church doors, John is surprised James has not reserved Westminster Abbey for the occasion. From the dozens of faces he only recognises Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper who arrive arm in arm and sit in the front pew with Harriet. Mr Holmes arrives only quarter of an hour before the ceremony is to start, plucking out a carnation from one of the vases and attaching it in his buttonhole as he makes his way towards the front to shake hands with Mrs Hudson.

James introduces John to the clergyman, Father Henry, a nervous-looking young man in prim cloak he is visibly proud to wear.

“He was just ordained last week,” James explains when the Father moves to greet the guests, muttering to himself as he goes, evidently mouthing the ceremony he is about to perform. John continues to inspect the strangers entering the church, glancing over his shoulder to see Harriet is still seated in the front with Miss Hooper.

James’ fingers go to adjust his collar, cold digits brush on his flushed neck. He pulls out a handkerchief, folds it neatly and slips it in John’s chest pocket.

“Are you nervous?” he asks with a smile.

The blush spreads to John’s neck, but he shakes his head. The wedding ring on his finger catches the light and gleams brightly when his hands begin to shake as well, and he twists them into fists as James takes his arm to lead him down the aisle.

 

 

\\\

It begins to rain just when they are to take the wedding photo. Because there is not enough light inside the house, James insists on continuing with the original plan and taking the photo outside, as does Mrs Hudson who gathers all the umbrellas she can find, ushers the guests inside and gives Miss Hooper two of the biggest umbrellas, one for herself and one to hold over John, who she sits down on a chair in front of a painted landscape. Miss Hooper pouts and whinges to herself and to Mr Holmes who happens to walk past.

“Terrible weather, isn’t it, Mr Holmes?”

He barely acknowledges her chirps, but glances at John who seems undisturbed by Miss Hooper barely covering him with the umbrella while she shifts from one foot to the other in the mud.

“Careful, girl!” exclaims Mrs Hudson next to them, almost making her slip mid-shift. “Do your task properly! You will get Mr Watson and the chairs soaked!”

She moves the chair next to John’s this way and that, according to the instructions of the photographer, and behind her Miss Hooper blushes crimson, pointedly straightening the umbrella over John so that not a single raindrop falls on him.

John is not bothered by the rain. He is used to it, has grown to love it. In Glasgow, the rain would beat down relentlessly for days or weeks at a time. Harriet is exhilarated of the familiarity as well. She is dancing round in the downpour and having abandoned her uncomfortable shoes long ago, her bare feet are already drenched black. Mud is striping her face as well, giving her an interesting look of an Indian on war path. John glances at the door where the maid assigned to her is standing looking extremely uncomfortable, not daring to go out in the rain to get Harriet and take her to her room for a wash nor to stay at the door and let the girl do as she pleases.

Taking pity on her, John stands up to stop Harriet when she passes him, doing a cartwheel. Miss Hooper, torn between covering the chair and John, in the end decides to stay with the expensive furniture. John goes to his sister and with a bribe of a promise of a bedtime story, she consents to run inside, almost knocking the maid down as she goes.

A flash of thunder lights the garden and it is followed instantly by a loud rumble. Miss Hooper screeches and almost falls down again. John grasps her hand to steady her, the umbrella dropping to the ground. Picking it up, he glances at where the camera is poised at him, the photographer arranging the cloth over it, James crouching behind the apparatus to peer at his husband, his stare strangely intense on John’s skin though unseen through the small lens.

John turns his face towards the sky.

It is wonderful, the coolness of raindrops on the back of his sweaty neck, and he loosens the necktie just a touch. The rain now has full access to both the back and front of his neck, as do icy fingers that touch it gently, leading him back to the chair for the photographer to immortalise the married couple.

 

 

\\\

“Do you know why John doesn’t speak?” Harriet asks, blowing foam off her hand.

“It is not my place to inquire, miss,” says the maid, pouring water over Harriet’s hair after lathering it with soap.

“It’s because of what happened in the woods,” Harriet continues, her wet hair hanging loose in front of her face.

Having heard enough stories of ghosts and mysterious disappearances taking place in the dark, the maid pricks her ears. If what she hears is interesting enough, she could tell it in the kitchen, finally drawing attention to herself from the cook who gets out more and hears all the rumours in town.

“What happened?”

“They took him!” Harriet whispers secretively.

“Who did?” the maid’s voice lowers as well.

“The fays!”

She sighs. A child’s fancy then, obviously told as a joke. Fairies be damned, but a ghost story she could have used. She loses interest, listening only out of courtesy.

“See, he prince of the fairies fell in love with John when he was walking in the woods. They took him to their kingdom and tried to force him to marry the prince but he didn’t want to so they got angry and took his voice before returning him.”

Harriet takes the offered towel and climbs out of the tub, dripping water everywhere.

“His voice was so beautiful,” she sighs. “He used to sing and play at the same time and everyone gathered round to hear him and all the young men fell in love with him. He was proposed to by several, but he always said no.”

She lowers her voice.

“You see, the prince played the piano as well! No one could compare to it, and now John misses the music he heard in the prince’s kingdom and that is why he plays all the time. And he always said he would only take someone who played as well as he and who loved music as much as he ---”

They are interrupted by a knock. Harriet, who has just pulled her night-gown on, runs to the door and opens it with a bang. John is standing in the hallway, cheeks glowing red and hair decorated with water droplets.

“Did you take the photograph?” Harriet asks jumping up and down. “I want to see, I want to see!”

_‘It’ll take a while for it to be developed, but you’ll surely see it when it arrives.’_

He nods to the maid who curtseys and prepares to leave the room.

“Will you tuck me in?” Harriet wheedles.

_‘What, are you still scared of the house?'_

_'Never! But you promised me a story.'_

Neither of them notice the maid, who steps out of the door and slides it closed quietly with a last glance at the fingers moving rapidly, casting vivid shadows on the walls in the dim firelight, the black figures like odd shapes of animals on the wallpaper among the flowers.

_'Have I told you about the wind and the girl yet?'_

 

 

+

He goes to the room where he has spent his nights so far. Feeling the long day on him, already having said goodbye to the guests, James disappeared somewhere, he decides to go to bed.

The maid has been in his room as well. There is a warm fire and water in the bowl and fresh towels hanging nearby. He splashes his face with water and lifts his eyes to the large mirror on the wall. Never having had much interest in his looks himself and used to the lack of mirrors at home, the amount of them at Fenton surprises him, making him uncomfortable as if there are extra eyes watching him constantly.

Scoffing at his reflection, he turns to take off his clothes. The jacket tossed away, hands on the buttons of his waistcoat, the wedding ring suddenly gleaming like a beacon on his finger, he remembers the man and the woman on the train and their whispered words about ingratitude. He lifts his gaze to look at his reflection like he did on the train, and sees James standing some distance behind him by the invisible door. He has entered so silently, appearing suddenly like a ghost, and like a ghost he approaches John without a sound and places his hands over his on the buttons. His voice sounds distant, like he is talking to someone else, when he leans in and whispers,

“Shall I kiss you good-night?”

 

 

It is like kissing darkness. In spite of the lamp on the table, John feels he can barely see James. Reaching his hands out to try and touch him, his thighs are grasped tight and his hips lifted up.

It is not like the darkness he seeks when lying on his back in the garden at home, spreading his fingers over his eyes. He does not search for this one, but it looks for him, finds him and consumes him.

James is not violent, he is not cruel. But he is possessive and indifferent to John's desires. He takes John apart, trying to wring out as much sound from him as he can in order to break the silence between them, and does not let go of him for the remainder of the night, sleeping with his arms round him, not in a loving embrace but in a vice-like grip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fenton House is [a real place](http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/fenton-house/) in Hampstead, London, and you can go visit it. St John's Church is an actual church quite close to the house, but I cheated a little and placed both the house and the church along with its cemetery closer to Baker Street for technical reasons.


	4. Self-Conscious And Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta'ed by [Roxy](http://reichebach.tumblr.com/), who is my favourite person in the whole wide world and who makes everything possible for me.

In the morning, John awakes to James kissing his cheek. He turns to the touch, sighing in relief at the gentleness of it, and can feel James smile against his temple as he lowers his lips to his ear.

“I have to go away for some days.”

John opens his eyes, blinking rapidly at the brightness, taking in James’ appearance. He has already dressed, his overcoat resting at the foot of the bed, together with his hat and gloves. Sitting up, John sees a large suitcase full of clothes and papers waiting by the door.

“I received a telegram an hour ago,” James explains, closing the lid of the case with a snap. “My associates in Brighton informed me of an incident at the docks, and I must go immediately.”

He opens the door and a footman enters to carry the suitcase out. The man glances briefly at John, who pulls the sheet higher to cover himself. Without closing the door, James returns to the bed to kiss John goodbye. John accepts the kiss, but covers his neck with his hand to indicate the need to speak.

His box has disappeared, but there is a knock and Harriet peeks into the room, fully dressed and eager to have her brother down to breakfast with her.

John signs to her rapidly.

“He asks after the piano,” Harriet says to James. “He asks if it is possible to have it delivered here while you are gone.”

James pulls on his coat and picks up his hat.

“Surely you won’t need the piano for a few days? Try and settle in, get acquainted with Mrs Hudson and Molly. I could invite Sherlock here! I shall stop on my way on Baker Street and tell him he is welcome to stay here. And I will leave the carriage for you, should you wish to go see London.”

He grasps John’s hands into his, kisses the knuckles and walks out of the door with a goodbye kiss on Harriet’s hand as well. They can hear him call to the driver and then wheels roll down the street. Harriet goes to the window to watch the carriage disappear behind the trees. She sees a glint of metal shine behind the divan she is standing on and crawls under it. The object in hand, she climbs next to John on the bed. He takes the tin box and hangs it round his neck, the metal ice cold against his chest.

 

 

\\\

Sherlock’s morning tea has gone cold in the cup and a few scones he happened to find two days prior still lie on the plate, the unusual mould patterns unnoticed by the keen scientific eye that has once again attached itself to the microscope to inspect something far more interesting than nutrition.

Soft creak of the front door and the steps of heavy boots pierce through the haze of excitement over his experiment.

“Going away, James?” he asks the figure in the doorway without turning round.

“Heard the brougham perhaps?” James asks, placing his hat on the table over the forgotten teacup.

“Not at all. I observed you are dressed in your travel clothes, although your steps on the stairs already gave you away. Your travel boots are much sturdier and the heels heavier than in your regular ones.”

“But you had your back turned to me! How did you ---“

He spots the glint of silver on the table.

“Ah,” he exclaims. “You saw my reflection on the teapot. And I thought that for once you were actually being clever!”

At last, Sherlock lifts his eyes from his instrument.

“Have you come to say good-bye?”

“Yes,” James twiddles one of the specimens and looks at it against the light. “I promised my betrothed that I would stop on my way and make sure he has company while I’m gone. I already met Mrs Hudson and Molly, and now I’m here to invite you to stay at Fenton for some days.”

Sherlock stares at him blankly.

“You wish me to entertain your husband and sister-in-law while you dandy off to extend your territory?”

James grins.

“He is quite delightful. So easy to embarrass, he blushes from the slightest tease. And the girl is actually intelligent.”

Receiving only a scornful look, James takes his hat to continue his journey.

“Well, consider it an opportunity to use my library for the last time without the piano playing in the background. You are aware that once there is one, it will be situated in the room and my husband will be there at all times and then you will not have a moment of peace.”

Sherlock stands up to see James to the door.

“I take it you will not retrieve the one on the field anytime soon?”

They shake hands and James steps out.

“Too much trouble. I think we will let that one rest and help cultivate the crops, or better still help keep one of the farmers’ family warm in the winter.”

He touches the brim of his hat and is away.

 

 

\\\

Fenton House has seven rooms, if one does not include the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. It is a grand house in comparison with the other ones in the neighbourhood, built from red stone and decorated with several white windows as well as rooftop balconies that give one a feeling that the house is constantly watching. The garden is the pride of the county and though too small for games such as cricket, ideal for afternoon tea and evening parties.

The black gates are always open, even mightier in their decorativeness in the evening when the lamps are lit and the golden decorations shine, paralleling the jewellery of the ladies arriving with their escorts, arms linked, dressed in their finest, chattering with acquaintances who happen to arrive at the same time. Laughter reaches the far ends of the garden where a solitary squirrel or a bird flees from the noise. It is too early in the year to have a reception in the garden, but the house is full of light and warmth and people exchanging news, drinking wine and congratulating the host and his new husband.

The wine drunk, the grates gone cold and the hall empty is how the house greets John in the morning after his wedding, James gone and Harriet his only comfort. The child, having eagerly examined the garden and the house on the days following their arrival, is happy to sit with her brother for some hours in the morning room after their breakfast tray has been taken away but her interest does not hold for long and when she hears that the cook’s cat has just given birth to a litter of kittens, she is out of the door with a hasty kiss on John’s cheek, drawings and pens spread over the table the only sign of her.

John is left to wander the house on his own, looking through the windows into the garden, spying on the kitchen maid and gardener conversing over the frozen cabbage heads. He follows their walk from the vegetable patch to the corner where they disappear, undoubtedly leaving through the wooden gate at the edge of the house, designed to let the servants in and out of the garden without being seen.

Eyes circling the walls, he calculates the portraits, each one a family member, each bearing the smallest resemblance to James’ lips, brows or chin. They look down on him from their frames, not a single landscape or still life portrait hanging next to them to draw attention away from the cold eyes.

He escapes to the hall, but the faces are there as well. They adorn the walls in every room from downstairs to the landing and in every room upstairs. He stands paralysed in the middle of the hall, hands in tight fists and shaking by his sides, the walls lean towards him, the carpet slides from under his feet, claustrophobia seeps in. The desolateness of the house creeping forth, the silence disappears, the rooms are suddenly full of muffled whispers and murmurs. Desperate to get out, he dares a step.

The voices quiet down the moment he moves, lifts his feet to meet steady floorboards, and the carpet back in place, the walls no more leaning over him the house falls silent like there never was anyone there. But the cold eyes of the portraits follow him up the stairs. He meets the maid, who only glances up and then quickly down with a curtsey and continues downstairs, staring at the fresh linen in her arms. The inhabitants of the wall turn their gaze to her for an instant, then they are back on John who stumbles the rest of the way upstairs.

He goes to the bedroom to find company in the music sheets he has brought from home, only to stumble upon the housekeeper and another maid who are busying themselves with preparing the room for the day. The hurried curtseys go unnoticed as he escapes to the library, blessedly empty, clearly just having been cleaned and the fire already blazing for it is a cold day. Thick grey clouds predicting a final snow storm have darkened the sky and the fire, the only light in which he can see the room, seems to set the empty walls ablaze. The deepest corner where the piano should be standing seems to become darker while the rest of the room is filled with golden light.

Back turned to the room, he sits by the window, leaning against the cool glass, praying for sound of footsteps on the gravel.

 

 

\\\

Mrs Hudson arrives with Miss Hooper and with them certain comfort and familiarity is restored in John’s heart. Harriet is thrilled to have someone to hear her stories and in Miss Hooper she finds an attentive listener while Mrs Hudson helps John get acquainted with his home. Having lived in the neighbourhood her whole life and visited the Moriarty’s even before James was born, she knows it better than the master of the house himself. Her warm way of describing the rooms seem to bring light into them, making the portraits Harriet always sneers at appear like they are suddenly smiling at them.

Mr Holmes arrives as well, only stopping to nod courtly at the company and to continue his way upstairs.

“Off to the library again,” Mrs Hudson tells John. “If I didn’t know better, he is friends with James because of his books. The late Mr Moriarty was a bibliophile and must have expanded the library in the country home twice a year. Greater part of the collection is still there, but James keeps the ones he considers to be the most interesting here. He has kept them all, never sold a thing. And every time Mr Holmes is on one of his cases and needs to find something, he comes to Fenton and stays in the library for days.”

“Doesn’t come out for food or drink,” pipes in Miss Hooper from her game of cards with Harriet. “Nor does he sleep. He is only interested in the dusty volumes about corpses ---”

“Your turn, Molly!” Harriet yells over her rant.

As predicted, Mr Holmes does not appear for tea. Neither does he leave when Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper do, and the former only pats John on the shoulder as they put on their bonnets.

“Don’t mind him, my dear. Let him be. He won’t be needing anything and it is possible he will be gone in the morning if he hears about something interesting.”

They shake hands and are on their way. Harriet has disappeared with the treats she won from Miss Hooper, and John is left standing in the hall alone. Darkness is settling over Fenton, and he can hear somewhere in the house doors being opened and closed, people rustling about, preparing the house for the night. Soon they will be in the hall to lock the doors and turn off the lamps.

If he had the piano, he would be playing to entertain himself for the few hours still remaining before the maid comes in to make his bed ready. He could always go to the library, but even if he was much of a reader, he would probably only disturb Mr Holmes and be constantly under that cold scrutiny.

Suddenly, he feels like a stranger in the house again. The warmth Mrs Hudson brought with her has dissipated as suddenly as it had arrived and John is struck by a wave of homesickness. Everything in Fenton seems cold and indifferent, all the fire and security of home left behind in the drawing room of his father’s house where the piano had stood for over 20 years.

Overwhelmed by loneliness, he goes to find Harriet.

 

 

\\\

If there is one thing James has, it is an adequate-sized library. Sherlock feels at home on Baker Street, but the lodgings lack space for all the books he comes across that are essential for his studies and experiments. So he takes advantage of James’ hospitality by storing several volumes in his already inundated bookshelves or indulging himself with late night studies on the divan in candle light.

The rest of the household gone to bed and silence finally settled in, he can devour volume after volume he believes to be helpful for his current case. The servants are so used to his nightly activities that they pay them no mind and if they come near the library when he is visiting, they make sure not to touch the materials scattered round the small sofa by the window. The voices quieten when they pass the closed door, and he amuses himself by deducing which sounds belong to whom, whether the steps are heavy under piles of laundry or monetary problems, or light because it is the maid’s day off and she is on her way upstairs to pick up her bonnet to go to town to meet her suitor.

But now, there are new voices in the house. Heavy manly strides accompanied by utter silence. Light child's steps and shrieking laughter.

The man who never speaks and the girl who never stops.

He finds the latter easy enough to fit into his mind palace, categorise and label, forget and remember only when he almost falls over her and a bag of marbles she has spread on the landing. A child. Loud, temperamental, but at the same time good-humoured and an interesting read when compared to certain others.

But the man.

He has never met anyone who is so silent and so loud at the same time. His piercing stare seems to look right through him, his mouth drawn tight, almost with hate, not merely scorn.

For the first time, he experiences the feeling of having his secrets poured out, no matter that they are inspected by someone who seems to do nothing to them but tear them out and store them in his soul.

So he buries himself in the library and does not think of the man at all. He generally sleeps little, irregularly at best, and favours reality over dreams any day. So he will spend the nights reading James’ books, storing the facts inside the rooms of his mind and writing some of the most interesting ones in his notebook for later perusal.

This is his amusement on the night in Fenton the day after James has travelled. The quiet house surrounding him and the delicate candlelight providing a perfect atmosphere for thinking he has resumed his usual pose, fingers placed under his jaw, eyes closed.

All this is disturbed by whispers in the corridor. Whispers that do not sound like any of the servants, though young and girly. Only one voice is speaking, but there is another hushing the speaker with a shush. A man.

Sherlock pulls on his dressing gown, picks up the candle and opens the door.

“Mr Watson!” he exclaims.

John jumps and drops the overcoats he has been carrying. Harriet peaks from behind him.

“Where are you going at this hour?”

“Adventure!” whispers Harriet before John can do anything.

Sherlock approaches them.

“You are going to the field? To do what? Retrieve the piano between the two of you? On horse-back? In the middle of the night?”

“Mr Moriarty does have a carriage,” Harriet pipes out.

“Which will never fit a piano,” Sherlock tells her, eyes on John.

They stare at one another for a long moment, John’s eyes stern and shoulders lifted, Sherlock more relaxed, hands behind his back. He looks at the silent man in front of him, posture stiff and straight, hands clenched in fists by his sides.

_Why do you want it back so much?_

“Wait here,” he says after a while, turns and returns to the library. He emerges again with his coat on and a thick scarf round his neck. They can just see a pistol attached to his belt before he buttons up the coat.

“Though I consider this to be the maddest idea I have ever encountered, I will take you there. You may be an excellent marksman yourself, Mr Watson, but you do not know the woods like I do. You would only get yourself and your sister killed.”

John grasps Harriet’s hand and storms down the stairs and through the hallway, leaving Sherlock to follow as fast as he can.

 

 

They reach the piano just when dawn begins to light the way and they can breathe at ease again. It is a long way on horseback, and the darkness is accompanied by a thick fog that forces them to move even slower. Harriet has fallen asleep in the saddle in front of John, hands still clutching tightly at the front of it.

Having expected his sister to be too exhausted to last long without dozing off, John has chosen a horse stern enough to carry both of them to Bedford and back. He had unwound his own scarf the moment Harriet had began to drift off, and secured her to his chest with several knots. Her head keeps lolling against him, accompanied by light snores and mumbles.

Every so often, John glances at his companion but he stares straight ahead the whole time. His eyes have turned icy blue and it seems like he is inspecting the landscape round them with every cell of his being, back stiff and chin up.

The moment he sees the piano, John detaches himself from Harriet and runs to the instrument. His sister is left on the back of the giant Shire horse to rub the sleep from her eyes, until Sherlock lifts her down.

John is fast removing the boards covering the piano without even bothering with the wrappings protecting the stool. He sits down without finishing and begins to play.

He sees nothing, feels nothing but the music. His eyes are half-closed the whole time, mouth drawn open. Harriet is running round the field, making cartwheels and pirouettes on the frozen ground.

“John, John, look at me!”

John opens his eyes to watch Harriet dance in time with the music and picks up the tempo slightly. Harriet, attempting to jump higher and faster than she is prepared to, falls down on her back and picks herself up laughing, beginning her performance again.

“John, John, watch!”

Sherlock keeps his distance. He wanders further away from the two enraptured by the music. He stands on a nearby hill, stops to look at the player that has shrunken to a small dot and the even smaller one that still jumps and dances round the cold field.

A farmer approaches him, evidently drawn away from his morning activities by the sudden playing. He greets Sherlock, and they exchange a few polite words before stopping to listen to the music.

It is curious, the echo that seems to add a whole orchestra to the sound of the single instrument. The music feels like it is tuned perfectly with the nature round it, the wind and the early light of the rising sun. Sherlock hears happiness in it, the same he always felt with his mother.

_Yes, it’s exactly the same. It’s just what she would have played._

The farmer makes his excuses, household duties waiting at home, and leaves with a raise of his hat. Sherlock walks back slowly, pausing to inspect the protruding vegetation every so often and filing them away in his mind.

Harriet has returned to her brother, and accompanies him with simple chord-playing, perfectly in time with her brother who sways with the music that must be his own fancy of the moment. Sherlock has never heard it before, nothing so fast, curious and wonderful.

He looks at John’s face, completely enamoured by the music that it is. There is a deep blush on his cheeks and his red mouth, lips swollen with teeth worrying them in his passion of being able to play, makes Sherlock turn away quickly as if he has seen something forbidden.

For the first time since he has met him, he sees John smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My reason for going from one name to the other and back again with the characters is that that way I can change the point of view of the story. To John, Sherlock is still Mr Holmes and Molly (though for Mrs Hudson, Sherlock and James she is Molly) is Miss Hooper. But there is a reason why John is always referred to by his Christian name, even in Sherlock's pov though they are not intimately acquainted. Yet.
> 
> PS. The term 'claustrophobia' was only coined in 1879, in case you're interested, but I still put it in a story set in 1850s. Just because I can.


	5. Where No Sound May Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Roxy](http://reichebach.tumblr.com/) was my angel for this one as well.

James returns two days later to find John and Harriet in the drawing room.

The door is open to the spring sun and James can hear Harriet’s voice drifting outside as he picks up his luggage from the carriage and hands them to the footman. Inside, the walls are shiny with sunlight, and especially the rooms downstairs are blinding with light now that the wall between them has been torn down and the renovations finished.

John is sitting at the small table by the window, eyes on Harriet, encouraging her to continue to sing after a slight mistake she has made in the pitch. She tries again, and receives a smile from John whose fingers are sliding on the table like he is playing a piano.

James pauses for a moment, his foot scraping the floor, and Harriet raises her gaze and stops. John’s fingers stop as well, he looks at Harriet and then to the door where James is looking at them with a smile. He scrambles up and folds the lace tablecloth back over the table.

“Hello there,” James greets.

“Hallo,” answers Harriet, uncertain whether she should curtsey or go directly to James and take his hand. So she stays still and looks at John for directions. John moves to stand next to her and nods at James, who lays his hat on the table and lifts the lace cloth away. He feels the surface with his hand, fingers meeting several deep cuts, shaped like the keys of a piano.

He lowers the cloth back and leans his hands against the edge. His eyes, when they look up at John, are calculating and sly.

 

 

\\\

“Mrs Hudson, what would you think if someone were to play a table like it were a piano?”

Mrs Hudson gulps down her tea too fast and chokes on it. James hides his smirk in his own teacup.

“Thank you, Molly,” Mrs Hudson says to the offered napkin. She looks at James with disbelieving eyes.

“Like it were a piano?”

James assumes the face of pretend concern, shaking his head at his tea and tutting,

“It’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, it is not a piano. It does not make any sound.”

He slurps his tea again, watches from under his eyebrows as Mrs Hudson and Molly look to one another anxiously. He catches Sherlock’s eye and winks.

“Such devotion is not healthy. I mean, I knew he was mute, but now I’m thinking perhaps it is more than that. I wonder if he is brain damaged in some way,” James shakes his head.

Unnoticed by all, Sherlock’s hand tenses round his saucer.

“No sound at all?” repeats Mrs Hudson.

“Why no, ma’am, it was a table.”

Mrs Hudson begins to fan herself, placing her hand over her heart under it.

“Well, we cannot guess what kind of thoughts he is having behind that silence. And furthermore, he _is_ from the north. But I am surprised! He seems like such a collected young man!”

James finishes his tea and pats the old lady’s hand.

“Well, it is nothing to worry about yet. The child at least will be placed under a governess and grow to be quite an eligible lady. It is just a concern for John I have.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mrs Hudson mutters and drinks down her own tea.

They are sitting with their backs turned to the door so that they do not see the sudden movement as someone walks past the door and vanishes round the corner. Sherlock, who is facing the entrance, lifts his eyes just in time to see John’s gleaming eyes, his cheeks heated and pink, before he disappears quietly up the stairs.

“There’s something to be said for silence,” James continues, taking a biscuit from Molly. She offers one for Sherlock, who declines and rises to leave. Exiting the room, he hears James exclaim,

“Certainly, there is nothing so easy to like as a pet. And they’re quite silent.”

and Mrs Hudson and Molly’s eager agreement.

 

 

\\\

A piano arrives the next day.

“My wedding gift to you,” James purrs as John inspects the instrument after it is freed from the wrappings. He goes to the exposed keys and plays scales, then backs away.

“Ah, yes. It is not tuned yet. That is why I have Mr Anderson here. He has the best ear for these kind of things, has been tuning pianos for the past 20 years.”

Mr Anderson bows and sets to work. John watches him go through the keys with the help of a tuning fork but already he can hear the difference in the sound of this piano. It will be purer for sure, but it will lack the familiarity and character he has come to love in his old one.

They are approached by the maid, who announces Mr Holmes. Mr Holmes, never comfortable with formalities, follows before she has time to finish. He nods at John, shakes James’ hand and, finding interest in the newest addition to the room, stays to inspect Mr Anderson at work.

Soon, Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper enter the room, the former kissing John on the cheek and inquiring after Harriet, the latter barely giving audible “how do you dos” when she spots Mr Holmes and proceeds to stand next to him to get his attention.

“So good to have so many friends here!” exclaims James, taking John’s hand to pull him closer. “Unfortunately, my business prevents us from going abroad for our honeymoon but since my husband has just arrived from a foreign country, I don’t think he minds much.”

He presses a kiss on John’s knuckles, enjoying the blush that creeps up his cheeks.

“We are just one guest short and then, I’m sure, the dinner will soon be ready --- Ah, Gregory! On time, as always.”

He shakes hands with a man who cannot be more than five-and-forty but already greying. James introduces him to John as Detective Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard.

“Hello, hello, Mr Moriarty,” Mr Lestrade shakes John’s hand enthusiastically. “Or do you prefer Mr Watson? - Always nicer to have your family name, isn’t it? I have still to find the woman eager enough to take my name, believe it or not? - Oh, you can believe it?”

He laughs good-humouredly, shakes John’s hands again, but is dragged away by Mr Holmes who John can hear say,

“Finally intelligent company!”

and start a heated conversation.

“Let them play,” James chuckles. “They have a very special relationship. Lestrade provides Sherlock with dead bodies, and Sherlock in turn gives him the men responsible for their unfortunate fate.”

He starts towards the morning room to wait for dinner, briskly taking Miss Hooper’s arm when her eyes go hopefully towards Mr Holmes but has to swallow her disappointment and be escorted out of the room when the man barely glances at her, still deep in conversation with Mr Lestrade. John in turn offers his arm to Mrs Hudson, nodding his head to her questions and chitchat, following the others to the morning room. The conversation barely hides the quiet noises of the piano from the drawing room and the dinner is finally announced only shortly after the sounds have ceased completely.

Mr Holmes and Mr Lestrade linger, evidently having a heated argument. Words such as ‘decapitation’ and ‘blood spatter’ catch the rest of the party, making Miss Hooper turn green in the face.

“Not a good table conversation,” James announces. “Let us go to the dining room before Sherlock tells us all the little details. Gentlemen, you are free to join whenever you lose interest in corpses, which in your case Sherlock, I would say is never.”

Mr Holmes does not note his friend’s words in any way, but Mr Lestrade lifts his eyes to make sure all the female parties are escorted properly to the dining room, Mrs Hudson taking James’ arm now and Miss Hooper John’s, and satisfied with the arrangement continues to listen to Mr Holmes.

The dining room has only a small table arranged for the night’s party, the number being but six. James directs Mrs Hudson towards the end of the table and pulls out her chair. When John offers Miss Hooper the chair next to the one directly opposite Mrs Hudson and James goes to stop him, directing Miss Hooper to the chair next to it and pulling the chair opposite Mrs Hudson’s for John to sit down, the lady exclaims,

“Why, James! What’s this now? Should not both of the hosts sit at the opposite ends of the table?”

Despite John’s surprise, James sits him down gently and explains,

“Since we have such a small party tonight,” he goes to his own seat at the foot of the table on John’s right, “I thought no ordinary seating plan should be used. I like having John sit next to me, and being close to yourself and Miss Hooper I am sure he will be more comfortable than sitting alone at the other end.”

Mrs Hudson, satisfied with this explanation, begins to describe her house and gardens to John, but Miss Hooper, exhilarated that Mr Holmes has finally entered the room and taken a seat next to her, only has eyes for the cold man, and Lestrade’s inquiries on her health fall on deaf ears.

The soup is brought in, and everyone settles down to wait to be served, trying the wine and complimenting the cook. It is dull, ordinary and comforting, and John is finally beginning to feel at ease. He jumps slightly when James’ hand goes to caress his thigh under the tablecloth, the man himself not showing any difference in his countenance, but continuing to converse with Mrs Hudson and sip his wine. John blushes, reaching for the salt just fast enough to drop his napkin on the floor, thus forced to lean down to pick it up. He hopes James will let go, but the hand stays on him until the main course is brought in and returns when the plates are cleared. Dessert on the table, a final press of thumb on muscle and at last James’ hand moves to pick up his spoon.

Nerves singing, John tries to shake the feeling of the lingering touch off, unintentionally dropping his napkin again. James picks it up for him and places it on his lap, fingers brushing over his hip bones as he lets go. The hand almost certainly would have stayed longer, if it were not for Harriet who enters the room just then with her maid and James rises to receive her.

“You are slightly early, my little dove,” he coos. “We have not yet finished dessert. But it seems to me like your brother is already bored with our company and would like to take you to see his new piano, hmm, John?”

John, only happy to leave the company, rises as well, bows and taking Harriet by the hand leads her to the drawing room where the new piano takes all her attention instantly.

 

 

They are joined a quarter of an hour later by the rest of the company, Miss Hooper accompanied by Mr Lestrade this time. The ladies are seated (though Mrs Hudson protests lightly against the ladies and the gentlemen being in the same room together so shortly after dinner), brandy and tea are served and all the time John and Harriet stay close to the fire, conversing in signs.

James observes them from the corner of his eyes, puts away his glass of brandy and goes to the piano. Mr Anderson having finished his work, the piano is now ready to be tried.

“John, would you like to play us something?” James asks his husband, sliding his fingers over the keys.

John shakes his head fast, indicating with a wave of his hand that anyone else from the party should try it first.

“Miss Hooper!” cries James, sitting back in his chair. “Play for us! Show my beloved that the piano has been tuned for him and he can play it without his fragile eardrums being crushed.”

A chuckle rolls round the room, stopping at Mr Holmes who stays as stern and unemotional as ever.

Miss Hooper sits down and plays a light tune, perfectly adequately for someone who has been trained since childhood, but without emotion and drawing too much attention to the slight errors she makes. She is rewarded with a round of applause and praise, but again Mr Holmes stays perfectly silent and only lowers his glass to join in on the applause and offer his polite clap or two.

Then it is John’s turn and he can do nothing but sit down and begin.

The difference in the sound, the mere strangeness of the keys under his fingers seem to prevent him from playing anything of his own. So he chooses something they will all know, and though everyone recognises the piece, their mouths drop and their eyes widen at the sudden change in the atmosphere, at almost the ghastly representation of the old master.

John feels like he is in a trance as he plays on, all the tiny differences in tune and pitch between his old piano and this one surround him and jump out so that they hurt him. He chose foolishly, the piece being one of his favourites, full of memories of past touches, of fingers on keys, hands on hands, music playing all the while in the background.

When he is finished, everyone stays silent until one pair of hands begins to applaud. He turns round to see Mr Holmes standing up and clapping enthusiastically, inviting others to join in as well until the room is full of the sound of hands beating together and praises accompanied with surprised stammering.

 

 

\\\

They are dining in a restaurant in central London when Sherlock pauses and turns to his companion.

“I thought you should know I had your piano delivered to my house yesterday.”

Looking up from his glass of wine, James stares at him.

“What piano? The one on the field? Whatever for?”

“I’d like to buy it from you,” Sherlock pushes his practically untouched plate away. He goes to his pocket and lights a cigarette. He offers one to James who, though still in the middle of his dinner, accepts and Sherlock lights it without looking, gazing at the people in the dining room.

“Why would you need a piano?”

“To play, you imbecile,” Sherlock says amiably, exhaling smoke.

“You do know that your ability to torture your violin does not make you a piano virtuoso?”

“Then I’d require lessons, obviously.”

James smirks.

“I see. You want me to lend my husband to you so you will have entertainment when there’s nothing else to do.”

Sherlock leans back in his chair, staring intently at a woman he has seen place several of the silverware inside her purse after using them to eat her dinner and is now eyeing the crystal glasses hungrily.

“You yourself made me entertain him the very next morning after your wedding,” he tells James. ”I am only offering to help you to let him get used to the new piano gradually. Let him come and play for a while. He will see the new one is better and will forget the old piece of wood and ivory.”

“And what, may I ask, will you get out of all this?” James inquires.

“A new talent as well as peace and quiet as you will not be coming to me to moan how your husband only sits and sighs after the instrument.”

James throws his head back and laughs so that the woman, who has just gone for the dessert spoon to slip it among rest of the cutlery she has already snatched, gives a start at the sudden noise and drops her purse. The silver clutters to the floor with the rest of the contents.

Sherlock smirks.

 

 

\\\

John does not take well to the news.

“He arranged for it to be moved tens of miles! And he only asked for the thing itself and lessons in return,” James pleads from his chair near the fire. “I have bought you a new one, a better one. What could the old one possibly have that you want it back so much?”

Harriet stares enraptured as her brother stalks rapidly back and forth in the room. She recognises his anger when she sees it, having witnessed it often enough after running away to the moors late at night and found hiding among the heather hours later by John, who then dragged her home to give her a scolding.

She has never witnessed rage like this. John does not even attempt to express his frustration in signs or by stomping his foot. He is only pacing back and forth, hands clutched behind his back, and Harriet can see his fingers twitching.

“He does not want the oaf, who doesn’t understand music, to play it!” she finally screams when she can no longer stand her brother’s silent misery.

John stops pacing and looks at his sister with a horrified expression.

James places his teacup on the table.

“He plays the violin with excellence. I promise you he will take good care of the piano and you will be proud of your pupil before long.”

Harriet jumps up.

“It’s his piano!” she exclaims.

John silences her with a wave of his hand, looks at James and nods sharply. James sighs and turns back to his tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps something will finally happen in the next chapter. Hmm? Hmm? HMM!
> 
> PS. Oh look, Lestrade! And Anderson!


	6. Where Man Hath Been

Mr Anderson of Anderson & Donovan climbs up the steps leading to the lodgings of Mr Sherlock Holmes on Baker Street, wondering to himself why on earth he has left his shop at all. A small, dirty boy had brought Mr Holmes’ card to him a quarter of an hour earlier, accompanied with a note that asked him to come on Baker Street as soon as possible. At first, he had wanted to make Mr Holmes wait and only appear at his door hours later, apologising for busy business, but Mr Holmes would have been able to read the lie on him and would have spat it in his face with pleasure.

Mr Anderson has met Mr Holmes several times though their lines of business are as far away from each other as trades can possibly be. A consulting detective (“ _Criminal,_ ” thinks Mr Anderson, who prides himself for his integrity) rarely seeks the company of a piano tuner, but due to some mischievous fate more powerful than himself, Mr Anderson has been subjected to Mr Holmes’ observation and ridicule on more than one occasion. Ever since the man walked into his shop to ask about a piano’s ability to hold a number of corpses and still be able to be played purely, Mr Anderson has not had a moment of piece.

Wherever he goes, the man seems to find him. He had almost turned down Mr Moriarty when he was called in to tune a newly arrived piano on one of his dinner parties. Sure of Mr Holmes’ presence and his partner having gone away, he almost had his pen on paper scribbling a note of apologetic decline but the business had not been good lately, money was missing from the books (Mr Donovan was sure the culprit was their accountant) and they might be bankrupted if he did not accept every opportunity of work that was offered.

So he had accepted Mr Moriarty’s invitation, been forced under the scrutiny of Mr Holmes once again, but to his surprise the man had stayed silently by the piano he was tuning, never commenting on his work.

Having left his apprentice in charge, walked over to Mr Holmes’ house, found the front door open, he is now standing on the lower landing, about to knock on the door. Mr Holmes opens it before his knuckles have touched the wood twice, and inspects him up and down with his hawk eyes.

“Well, sir,” Mr Anderson says, gritting his teeth, “here I am. What can I do for you?”

“Your job, Mr Anderson,” Mr Holmes replies, moving aside.

Mr Anderson steps in and stops at the sight of a beautiful piano standing in the middle of the dusty sitting room.

Broadwood, he recognises instantly. He steps closer to the instrument and puts down his case and hat. A strange smell, a mixture of wood and something sweet (bluebell?) rises from the wood well before he lowers his face on it and strokes the beautiful patina.

“This is an old piece,” he whispers.

“I would suppose so,” Mr Holmes says behind him. “It was given to Mr Watson over two decades ago.”

Mr Anderson turns round with a whiff.

“This is Mr John Watson’s piano? The one from Bedford field?”

“The one and only,” Mr Holmes replies, pouring tea into two cups he has placed on the desk. “I hope you can drink and work at the same time, for I am not so fond of your company that I would like you to stay for a cup afterwards. But it is good manners to offer one’s guest something warm after they have come through such a ghastly weather.”

He hands a cup of milky tea to Mr Anderson, who tastes sugar in the mixture as well and thinks through the anger of the evident insult in Mr Holmes’ offering,

_How in the hell does he know how I take my tea?_

He places the saucer on top of the piano and opens his case.

“If you would like someone more to your liking to tune the piano, Mr Holmes, I am sure I can recommend several ---“

“You are an idiot, Anderson, but you can tune a piano,” Mr Holmes says against the rim of his teacup. “Get to work now, if you please. My teacher is to arrive in three hours and I have an experiment that needs my attention before I can concentrate on piano playing.”

Never wanting to stay in the man’s presence longer than necessary, Mr Anderson sets to work, tuning fork tingling and the piano making low grumbling noises as he presses the keys. Mr Holmes sits and sips his tea, looking out of the window at the rain and wind that does its best to slow down the constant traffic of carriages, pedestrians and loiterers that Baker Street is famous for. Mr Anderson knows several of the ragamuffins he sees slumped in the street corners and doorways to be in Mr Holmes’ pay, something he calls his Irregulars.

Urchins and street rats, is Mr Anderson’s opinion. One of them, the boy who had delivered Mr Holmes’ note, had been too much at home in his shop and would have been swept out of the door with a good kick, if he had not already been on the street when Mr Anderson’s hand went for the broom.

Finally, the work finished and the piano ready to be played (though the dampness of outside air must have done something to it for the sound is more hollow and resounding than from a piano stored properly indoors), Mr Anderson packs his bag as quickly as possible, gulps down his cold tea and retreats with a nod.

Mr Holmes, never one for civilities, walks swiftly to the piano without even a glance at the tuner.

“Give my regards to your associate and wish him the best of luck with his marriage,” he says nevertheless.

Mr Anderson nearly drops his case on the landing. Hugging it to his chest he turns to look at Mr Holmes now standing and looking at the keys as if they could spring to life at any moment.

“Meh-marriage?” Mr Anderson stammers.

With pretended surprise, Mr Holmes looks at him.

“Why, of course! I would imagine that he has every intention of making an honest woman out of Miss Sally now that he has begun to see her daily instead of on a mere weekly basis. Fine jewellery she is wearing these days. I wonder how he acquired that many.”

He stares with a calm composure, hands behind his back, while Mr Anderson gapes and gasps like a fish before gathering himself, nodding curtly and shutting the door behind himself with a bang.

 

 

\\\

They arrive on Baker Street earlier than promised. Mr Holmes opens the door, glances at Harriet and then up at John, standing behind her, like he is determined to have nothing to do with this.

“Johnny can’t ---“

John taps her back firmly, eyes still on Mr Holmes.

Harriet grins like a cat and continues,

“John cannot stand to teach piano with it all out of tune. So I’m to teach you scales.”

Harriet brushes past Mr Holmes and he holds the door open for John who does not enter but starts writing on a piece of paper he takes from the tin box hanging about his neck. He offers it to Mr Holmes, who takes it with a raised eyebrow.

_I will be back in an hour to take her home._

Lifting his eyes, John is already downstairs and Mr Holmes is just able to catch him before he steps back on the street.

“Mr Watson, can I at least offer you a cup of tea before you go? I promise we will not start the lesson before you are gone, but do not force me to let you leave before I have given you some refreshments.”

John is about to shake his head when they hear the sound of a perfectly in-tune piano drifting from upstairs.

“Why, it’s tuned!” Harriet shrieks with joy.

Mr Holmes turns to John, small smile on his lips. John does not even look at him but walks directly into the house and up the stairs to the sitting room where Harriet is going through the keys one by one. He sits down next to her, plays a simple melody, stops to listen to the sound hanging in the air, almost visible written in the dust particles flying in the sunlight.

He tries another, and then another, and then another. He is only stopped by Harriet’s hand that pushes in the way of his fingers in her eagerness to start teaching, and he remembers himself and turns to Mr Holmes.

Who is standing in the corner, the slight smile now a full-blown smirk.

John does not like that expression _._

He stands up, tapping Harriet on the shoulder to sign her to raise too.

They stand next to each other facing Mr Holmes, John’s face like that of a prosecutor, Harriet’s posture straight, clearly proud of her position as a teacher as well as an interpreter.

_‘Tell him I’d like to hear what he can play.’_

“Show us what you can play,” Harriet translates.

John taps her back again.

“Please,” Harriet says, dragging out the middle vowel.

Mr Holmes’ smile fades and he turns to the piano, embarrassed.

“I’d prefer not to.”

Harriet does not need to translate the question in John’s eyes.

“I’d rather listen and learn that way.”

“Everyone needs to practise,” Harriet exclaims incredulously, and John waves his hand in agreement.

“I already play the violin. My ear for music is quite adequate for I have played since I was four years old. I am sure that just by listening to your playing I will learn perfectly.”

He inspects John whose eyes have gone back to the piano, the fingers of his left hand hovering slightly over the keys as if unsure whether he is allowed to touch them. Slowly he edges back on the stool, Harriet lingering behind, irritated that her position has been stolen from her but still eager to hear her brother play.

John flicks the lid in place, and Sherlock’s hand flashes up, his finger only just missing the hard lid as it snaps against the piano. John barely glances at him as he begins to play scales. He looks at Sherlock challengingly.

“Lovely,” Sherlock smiles.

Harriet giggles.

John continues, adding chords to the scales, going from beginning to the end and back to the beginning on the keys, adding to the music little by little as he goes. Soon he gives the coat he has been carrying to Harriet and lifts his other hand on the keys as well.

 

 

\\\

James returns late, smelling of cigars and whiskey, his trousers stained slightly with cue chalk. He enters the drawing room still clad in his overcoat, arms folded over his chest, as if protecting himself from the cold. He stops at the door to look at John and Harriet who have had a quiet evening, the latter reading out loud from a copy of Dickens. She stops the moment she hears the bootsteps from the door and sees James standing there like a ghost of Christmas past.

Her eyes go directly to the front of James’ coat that has begun to wriggle like he has hidden a litter of mice inside. He walks to the fire where the two are bundled on the rug and reaches his hand inside his coat. No mice emerge but a squirming whimpering pup.

Harriet’s eyes light up.

James beckons her to put the book away and lays the dog gently on her lap where it keeps squirming and barking quietly every now and then, all the while sound asleep. Harriet’s fingers touch its snout gently, and instantly the pup falls quiet and turns on its side as if dead. John scratches its belly with his finger. The pup is so small it could fit into his palm.

“What’s his name?” Harriet asks breathlessly.

“Doesn’t have one yet.”

“Can I name him?” she asks quietly, poking the dog’s round belly with her pinkie.

“Of course,” James answers, taking off his coat and throwing it on a chair. “He is yours.”

Harriet fingers the small tail gently and it starts tapping on her thigh, the puppy sighing in its sleep.

James sits down on the rug close to John and as Harriet keeps exploring the puppy’s fur with her forefinger, he places his hand on the inside of John’s thigh, sliding it slowly up and down. The hand only strays for a moment when the maid enters to take Harriet upstairs to her room. It returns the instant the door closes behind them, accompanied by James’ lips on John’s neck and his other hand tugging the shirt away to splay his fingers over John’s ribs.

 

 

\\\

Harriet comes with John to Baker Street the next day as well, her new companion held tight against her chest, hidden inside her raincoat to protect it from the downpour outside. The pup is wild with all its fresh wonder of the world and will not stay still. Harriet, restless as well, barely says hello when Mr Holmes opens the door and at John’s firm prohibition of taking the puppy out on the street by herself stays downstairs with her protégé to play in the hall.

Without his interpreter, John is left with pen and paper and begins to scribble immediately. Mr Holmes reads the note upside down, and stops John before he has time to finish by laying his hands over his. He points at the start of the note where John has addressed him formally and says,

“Mr Watson, I would like there to be a familiarity between us. I consider you to be a friend, and now that you are my tutor as well and we are to spend time together, please, take it into your heart to call me Sherlock.”

He lets go of John’s hands.

“And may I call you John?”

There is such sincerity in his eyes, a smile on his lips and he truly seems to want his friendship. So John nods and resumes his writing. Once again, Mr Holmes’ hands stop him.

“Let us continue like last time. You will play and I will listen. I assure you it is the easiest way for me to learn.”

He offers to take John’s rain soaked coat and hangs it on a nail on the door. Turning round, he sees John is already at the piano, sliding his fingers over the keys, once again unsure whether he can claim it or if he should wait for permission. His hair is slightly damp and small water droplets decorate the back of his neck. They fall on the carpet as he turns his head to look at his pupil who nods. So he sits down and begins.

 

 

Half an hour later, the room is full of intense playing and John is once again somewhere beyond the present. Sherlock, sitting close by in an armchair, watches the rapid movement of the fingers and the slight swaying of John’s body. He finds it fascinating, John’s ability to transfer himself away from this world through his playing. He is less aware of his body when he plays, allowing it to move differently from usual, more free and wanton.

When he changes the piece, he leans over the piano to give more pressure to his playing. The volume grows with the tempo, and Sherlock stares at his revealed neck where the remnants of the rain are still glimmering, his hair curling slightly at the ends.

Slowly, he rises from his chair, eyes attached to the back of John’s head.

 

 

He can feel Sherlock pacing, not so much hear him for the music is so loud and he himself is so entrapped in it that the clack-clack of Sherlock’s shoes is only an echo under his feet. There has been a change in the atmosphere the moment Sherlock left his chair and began to walk about the room. It has made him change the piece once more, still fast and rough, but more melancholy, purely without the joy of the previous piece.

Downstairs he can hear Harriet’s mixed shrieks of joy and attempts to scold the puppy, attempting to teach it tricks but the pup being too young for anything but mindless tail-chasing, John doubts Harriet will make any progress with her teaching.

But her voice, so familiar and still sharp with its accent, takes him back to Glasgow to his father’s house on the moors. Harriet’s voice drifting from the other room, the sun shining like it never seems to shine here, a man standing next to him, foot tapping rhythm on the floor as he plays, a hand resting gently on his when he makes a mistake.

He is so lost in the past, so used to the steady steps that he reacts too slowly when they turn towards him, quicken, a hand covers his nape and lips attach to his neck.

The stool falls down with a bang as he jumps up. Sherlock does not touch him to halt his retreat, but the way he calls out his name, voice full of fear and nervousness, makes him stop. He stands at the windows, breathing heavily, waits for Sherlock to beg him to forgive his foolishness, to never mention it to anyone.

Instead,

“John, do you know how to bargain? There is a way you could have your piano back.”

Gathering himself, John turns to look at him. He cannot see Sherlock’s expression with his eyes in the shadow, but his lips are shiny and red, like he has been worrying them for a while.

It is not just sudden fancy. He has been planning this.

“See...“

He licks his lips and swallows before continuing.

“There are things I’d like to do while you play.”

John stares at him, snorts derisively and turns to collect his things.

“If you let me, you can earn it back,” Sherlock hurries to say, and John stops. “You want it back, don’t you?”

Sherlock approaches him, slowly but confidently, assured that John will not run.

"What do you say? One visit for every key."

He is not wary but moving like he is approaching a prey, his eyes inhuman, rings of yellow framing the slits of black. John recognises the beast from the time he met it in the forest, gun ready, thighs quivering with tension, thanking God that Harriet is not with him.

The wolf is waiting at the back of Sherlock’s mouth which still looks full and human, the fangs hiding behind the lips, and John can see how it will look once he says yes and the wolf finally smiles and the humanity in Sherlock disappears.

He has to say yes. He wants back what is his.

Circling the piano, he clears his throat and takes a paper from the box, writes down his own terms.

Sherlock looks at him from the note.

“’One for every black key’? That is half less.”

John picks up his coat from on top of the piano and turns to leave. Sherlock steps up to block his way. He smirks down at the small creature standing in front of him, staring him in the eyes, his expression never wavering.

“All right, all right. One for every black one.”

With every ounce of his hate towards the man, John shoves his coat in his arms and turns back to the piano. He sits down to wait for Sherlock to hang the coat on a nail on the door, only placing his fingers on the keys when he knows he has his full attention. But when Sherlock’s hand touches his neck, he pulls his hands away from the piano abruptly.

“Play,” Sherlock whispers. “Keep playing.”

Obediently, John lifts his hand, presses on the lowest key once sharply and raises his finger as in number one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey! Anderson is back!


	7. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I visited Fenton House in the autumn of 2013. The house has been preserved in almost the same condition as Lady Binning left it in the 50s and the décor now combines all the three centuries the house has seen in its lifetime. Still, there is something very Victorian lingering on the place and on my visit I attempted to move and feel and see as my characters would have in their 19th century setting. The garden with its small labyrinth and secret door is almost exactly the same as it was 300 years ago and gave me lots of good ideas on how to carry the plot onward.
> 
> I apologize for the crappy quality in places! I only had my phone with me and the weather was being very British as well, so there was not much light inside. And the floorplan, oh god the floorplan! My father would be deeply ashamed of me, and he's Bob the Builder incarnate.

 

 

 

Dining room and drawing room.

Morning room.

Harriet's room.

Master bedroom.

Library.

Library.


	8. Hush'd

Nothing happens on the next lesson. Harriet comes along once again with the puppy but it is useless company now since it only wants to sleep on her lap and so she is banging on the closed door only a moment after John has begun to play. Sherlock opens the door and stares down where Harriet stands, defiant as always.

“I want to speak with my brother,” she states rising to her full height.

The piano stops, John closes the door behind himself quietly and turns to sign to Harriet not to bother them.

He has contemplated on allowing Harriet to follow him inside but knows the deal would be off immediately if Sherlock was not able to do what he wants. And he will do nothing if Harriet is in the room.

 _‘_ _You mustn’t bother us. Go play downstairs.’_

“I want to watch! I promise I’ll be very quiet!” she pleads stomping her foot.

 _‘_ _No! He is very shy and can’t practise with an audience.’_

He turns to go and Harriet grasps his shirt.

“I won’t look at him!”

John gives her a stern look and she is left standing on the landing, hands hanging limb by her sides, lip pouting. John goes back to the piano and resumes his playing, waiting for Sherlock to move from his chair where he is sitting still as a statue.

He does nothing but watch. Now that the deal has been made, John has become aware of his presence and can only feel the stare on his skin when he plays. He cannot enjoy the piano but sits on the edge of the stool and waits. Sherlock sits in his corner, eyes concentrating on John’s every movement. John knows he is cataloguing him. James has told him about what he does, how he looks at people, lays them open in his mind and spills out their secrets.

He stares and does not speak but during the next lesson when John has been playing for a good half hour, he leans forward and says,

“Take off your shoes.”

John’s head turns sharply and the keys screech when his fingers slip on them. They stare at each other for a heartbeat before John unties his shoes and pulls them off.

“Your socks as well.”

The floor is cool and definitely dusty under his feet. Sherlock does not keep a housemaid but he has an old woman who comes in to clean when he calls. Not very often then.

John starts once more. He does not turn to look but merely feels Sherlock shift closer, crawl under the piano and settle on his back on the dusty floor. John opens his eyes slightly and lowers his head to look at him just when Sherlock slides his hand over the instep of John’s right foot. He almost stops again.

“Keep playing,” Sherlock’s voice says under the piano. “Do not stop.”

John plays.

Sherlock’s palm travels over his toes, fingers brushing over the ticklish inside and his foot jumps uncontrollably. Sherlock chuckles and slides his fingers feather-lightly over the spot again. John considers kicking the man in the face.

Sherlock strokes the spot languidly for so long that John’s skin buzzes under the touch. He dares another glance under the piano to see that Sherlock’s eyes have gone distant and dark. He finally moves his fingers and John’s attention returns to his playing.

Back to the toes now, Sherlock’s hand slides under John’s foot to lift it slightly off the dusty floor. The fingers spread over the sole, drag to the heel and explore the calluses there. John can feel the hairs on his leg stand up as Sherlock’s hand brushes over his ankles to caress the protruding bone.

The hand travels back to the toes, over the instep again, up the calf and under the trouser leg. John curses himself for wearing broadening trousers today. Sherlock’s hand is now almost on his knee. John stops playing abruptly with a compulsive twitch and Sherlock squeezes his thigh. He can feel the nails on his flesh.

When they dig into the tendons on the back of his knee, he twitches again and barely finishes the piece without ruining the crescendo.

They are both still, John’s hands holding onto the sides of the piano chair, Sherlock’s fingers still squeezing his thigh.

Then there is the distinct pressure of lips on the bone. John jumps up, almost knocking down the chair again, backing away into a corner.

Sherlock emerges from under the piano. His hair is sticking up and full of dust and cobwebs, red eyes staring at John with evident hunger. His tongue darts out to lick his lips briefly, as if he is thinking what John would taste like, as if he is ready to lounge and eat him in a single gulp.

Of course he does not. Nor does he smile wickedly like the wolf that he is and when John pulls on his socks and shoes and walks past him to go to the door he only reaches out to grasp his hip lightly before letting him go.

 

 

\\\

The afternoon sun gleams on the polished piano, a discarded shirt lying on the wood that shines together with the black and white keys and the sturdy legs.

Sherlock sits in his chair, admiring his work and sips his tea. The curtains are drawn, the windows are open and the sun shining over the instrument reaches his remote corner as well and finds him naked, the shirt he has been wearing now useless and black with dust from polishing the piano. He picks it up and presses his face to it, hoping that somewhere under the dust there is a little bit of John as well, parts of him having lingered on the keys and now attached to the fabric.

The bell rings just when he has pulled on his dressing gown. A telegraph boy hands him a short message and even without the sickly perfume covering the note like it would if it was hand-written, he knows who requires his assistance after he has glanced at the first line and the way the message is addressed.

Another visitor knocks on the door as he is buttoning up his shirt in front of the sitting room mirror.

“You come on a bad time, James,” Sherlock says shrugging into his coat. “I am wanted on Eaton Square.”

James stops in the doorway with a surprised look on his face. He twirls his hat lazily in his hand, inspecting Sherlock as he prepares to leave.

“Ah!” James exclaims, eyes shining. “Is it that time of year again?”

Sherlock chuckles.

“Think what you want, she is only a friend.”

“ _Friend_ ,” James slides the word between his teeth. “Yes, she is a friend with several other men as well.”

“No,” Sherlock says and pats him on the back. “She is a friend only to me and The Woman to others. Walk with me?”

They start down the street until Sherlock finds a vacant hansom driver standing by a butcher’s, reading the evening newspaper. Familiar headlines scream on the front page at them.

“I don’t think I need your abilities of deduction to guess why she has called for you,” James comments, glancing at the gory photographs accompanying the article in the paper.

Sherlock gives the address and jumps into the hansom. He leans out of the window to say goodbye to James,

“We shall hope it is what you think then. Irene Adler rarely calls gentlemen in just for tea and chit-chat.”

 

 

\\\

An old friend opens the door of the grand white house.

“Sally,” Sherlock greets and steps inside. “I am here to see your mistress.”

Sally closes the door behind him, distaste flaming in her eyes.

“Were you called?”

Sherlock, taking off his hat, gives her a look that makes her mouth twist.

“Believe me, dear Sally, that if I had not been asked to come, I would not be here.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. A man like _you_.”

She stands in front of him in the hall, blocking the way to the staircase he is trying to reach. She hisses at his questioning lift of an eyebrow,

“This is not a place where you can just barge in and demand to see the owner as you please. You will sit and wait and I will fetch her for you. When it suits _me_.”

Sherlock throws himself on a sofa, eyes measuring the woman in front of him with a look that makes her shiver.

“I see Mr Anderson has blessed you with another visit.”

Sally jumps.

“Though I would suppose Mr Donovan would not be happy to hear about your other conquests, not now that he has been visiting the goldsmiths of Belgravia,” Sherlock flips some dust off of his coat. “I know how you are fond of giving idle tongues reason to wag. Fetch me your mistress and you will have something to listen to behind closed doors. Leave me standing here to be insulted and the next time when you are standing at a street corner gossiping you have to stand closed-mouthed whilst other girls share the rumours of their houses.”

From the corner of his eye he can see Sally inspecting her dress, touching her face and hair as she ascends the stairs, evidently trying to find any traces of the said gentleman’s visit. He hears her walk to the end of the landing, knock on a door and then two pairs of feet, the first lighter than the second, rush back. Bare toes appear at the top of the stairs.

“Sherlock!” Irene calls out. “So glad you are here!”

She beckons him to climb the stairs with one hand and dismisses Sally with a wave of the other. When she meets him in the middle, Sherlock leans in to whisper,

“Knees,”

enjoying every bit of the horrified expression on her face. Irene kisses him on both cheeks, her perfume attaching itself on him firmer than her lips do, and leads him to her room. Only clad in a black silk dressing gown with birds and flowers embroidered in gold, several of the men situated on the sofas in the front hall follow her retreat with lust-filled eyes before the girls sitting on their knees pull their attentions back with a light smack on the arm.

There is a tray of tea waiting in Irene’s room. She pours two cups and hands the other to Sherlock.

“I trust you are well? Murders in Whitechapel keeping you busy? And James? Is married life treating him well?”

Sherlock sips.

“If I had known that the only reason you invited me over was to gossip, I would not have bothered.”

Irene throws her hands up.

“Oh, come, come! We barely see you here anymore! It is only polite to chat before talking business.”

She sits down on the chair across Sherlock’s and crosses her legs.

“I fail to see what James’ marriage has to do with me,” Sherlock picks up two sugar cubes at once with the tongs and drops them in his cup. “Your maid makes sour tea.”

“The rumours run fast. I hear you’ve taken up the piano.”

“That is an interesting rumour indeed. I can’t guess how you could have heard of that. I don’t think our acquaintances move in the same circles.”

“No, but they do shop at the same tailor. Sally overheard your lovely friend Miss Hooper blabbering to Mr Milliner’s wife about your new hobby. And that James’ husband is your new tutor.”

She leans in and smiles at Sherlock mischievously.

“Our musical Mister Holmes! I would not have thought you of all people to be interested in taking up piano tinkling.”

“Always useful to have another skill,” Sherlock replies nonchalantly.

She can see she will not have any more out of him, so she stands up, opens a drawer and takes out a notebook.

“Four of my top girls so far. I am sure you are already familiar with the details, so I shall not bother you with them. You can read the files yourself.”

“I am familiar with them, yes, and I am already on the case. I do hope you have some new insights to provide, however, for I am not here for your incentives. You know why I do my work.”

She throws the book at him and snarls ferociously,

“He has made it personal. Those girls were under my protection, never supposed to be on the street in a place like that. They had no reason to be there, they were lured in and brutalised. You know what he does, you know what he _took_.”

She pulls out more documents from the drawer and spreads them on the dresser.

“This is everything I have on them. They trusted me with their lives. I knew them better than anyone. You are free to take it all with you.”

Sherlock stands, takes of his coat and jacket and throws them on his chair. Irene’s eyes follow his movements and her expression grows soft again. Taking her tea with her, she spreads herself over the divan beside the dresser, her gown sliding open to reveal her legs.

“You say you do not come for incentives but you are aware that I am known to give generous rewards to anyone who does me a favour.”

Sherlock inspects the documents without looking at her.

“I don’t take money for my services, you know that.”

“It is not money I meant.”

She pokes Sherlock on the back with her toes.

“It is not good having it sulk between your legs forever. You need a woman in your life!”

“And you are proposing yourself for the job?” Sherlock asks, still not paying her any mind but reading rapidly through a paper he is holding before he opens his notebook.

Irene stands and slides her hands down his back, walks slowly to stand in front of him and presses her hand over the notebook he is scribbling on, leans in and whispers in his ear,

“A treasure like that should not sleep on your stomach at night.”

“It is not your concern to look after me or my protrusions, Irene.”

“I am here to make sure that no man with enough money is left cold. You have just about enough, I believe, to even buy me,” she purrs.

Her eyes flick over his face, stopping to look deep into his and Sherlock stares stubbornly back.

“Or have I gotten it wrong,” Irene asks, “and you seek for assistance from the molly houses of Holborn?”

She presses her fingers on his wrist and leans in further to breathe him in.

“Or perhaps,” she says softly, “you have a different kind of business transaction going on? Music has always been a perfect way to entice company.”

Sherlock removes her other hand from where it has been crawling up his leg and kisses the knuckles with an expression on his face that leaves Irene completely dumbfounded. They have known each other long enough to be aware of the other’s respective ability to read people. They can see a secret from a mile away and they are both familiar with those of each other. So she is stunned that he is not denying her implications but turns back to the files on the dresser and continues to write in his notebook.

“That thing is wasted on you,” Irene sighs finally, lying back on the divan. “Just find out who has been ganking my girls and I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

 

 

\\\

Once again, Sherlock opens the door before John has had the chance to knock. He turns round without a word, retreating back into the room to continue his preparations.

He steps to the window and pulls the curtains closed. Turning to go to the other window he sees John still standing at the doorway, hands squeezed into fists. The light is falling directly over him and Sherlock can see his eyes glisten. He pulls at the curtains, drawing the room into darkness. John’s eyes fade out.

There is a candle waiting on top of the piano. Sherlock lights it and says,

“Take off your jacket and waistcoat and roll up the sleeves of your shirt. I want to see your arms while you play.”

The flame on the match goes out with a puff.

John sits down at the piano, opens the lid and strokes his finger on the first G flat. Sherlock is standing close behind him, apparently ready to pull the clothes off himself if John does not move.

John opens his cravat and lifts it on the piano together with his jacket. When he goes for the buttons of his shirt, Sherlock moves slightly behind him. He hears fabric rustle. Trying to ignore it, he pulls the waistcoat off and places it on top of the other clothes, never looking behind himself.

Finger on the newly acquired key, he lifts his shoulders, ready to play.

“The sleeves,” Sherlock orders.

Fingers twitching, John rolls up the sleeves and starts. His posture is different, even straighter and stiffer than before now that such a great part of his rampart has been torn down, and he freezes momentarily when he feels Sherlock step closer without preamble.

John can sense what has changed as he begins to play and the hands come down to touch him. Sherlock has taken off his own jacket but kept on his shirt. John feels the cotton brush his shoulders through the thin fabric of his shirt and it makes him suddenly aware of how bare he feels just with his undershirt on, the sleeves tucked up. Especially when Sherlock slides his hands under his wrists and drags his palms along his skin, his cheek almost pressed against John’s, breath uneven on his shoulder.

It is different from touching his feet. That he was able to shake off as teasing.

This is too intimate. It is too much.

He stops playing, hand flying to his mouth and his teeth biting down on the knuckles.

“Two keys,” Sherlock breathes in his ear and John’s fingers reluctantly return on the keyboard.

Sherlock’s hands make their way slowly up to his elbows, stop to rub lightly on the dry skin there, continue up to his armpits, shoulders, neck, where he stops again and John can hear the fabric rustle as Sherlock pulls off his shirt.

The back of Sherlock’s hand returns to John’s neck, travelling from one shoulder to the other, stops there to pull the shirt away slightly, attempting to slide inside under the buttons to touch John’s breastbone.

John’s playing rises and he bangs the rest of the notes with such force and speed Sherlock backs away to the corner. John shuts the lid with another bang and turns away to button up his clothes. He has already hanged the tin box round his neck when he realises his jacket is not on the piano where he has placed it. Sherlock’s hand appears in front of him to offer the lost garment. He takes it without looking up, pulls it on and storms out through the door.

Alone in the room, Sherlock opens his fist to look at a single strand of blond hair he has picked from the jacket when John has had his back turned.

 

 

\\\

Another dinner party.

This time James has invited a much larger crowd and the hall and drawing room downstairs are buzzing with similar chatter and excitement as they were on their wedding day. The evenings are warmer every day and the guests are arriving through the south gates, enjoying a short stroll after having dismissed their drivers, some even stopping by the drawing room windows to chat and smoke a cigarette. John hears a sharp laughter and leaves the mirror where he has been struggling with his collar to look out of the large window of the bedroom.

Three women and two men are standing right below him on the path, smoking languidly, a brunette’s laughter rising higher than anyone else’s in the party. It is a shriek of pure glee, unaltered happiness and the others join in easily.

He does not recognise any of the faces.

Turning round, James’ hands come to rest on his shoulders to straighten his collar. He has been downstairs receiving the guests while John has been challenged with the task of dressing himself in the evening wear he hates. The collar is the worst of all, always choking him, but James’ fingers loosen and tighten it again expertly, his eyes gleaming in the evening light.

John, too familiar with that look, aware of what is to come, mouths _‘dinner’_ and points at the clock on the mantel.

“These old clocks are always fifteen minutes fast”, James says, releasing him to go and move the hand of the clock back a quarter of an hour.

The titter of the woman standing in front of the house echoing in his ears, John struggles to keep his balance when James backs him towards the divan at the window. James gazes out for a moment before turning his eyes back to John.

“I wonder... Do you think they can see us?”

The excitement in his voice hits like a strike of a fist, and John bends in two to cover his face against James’ chest.

 

 

When they emerge, hand in hand, James leading the way towards the stairs, John’s eye catches a shadow move in the corner and in the dim light of the hallway sees a cruel twist of scorn on Sherlock’s mouth. His eyes follow John for the rest of the evening and wherever he turns, the expression of distaste on Sherlock’s face is always there to receive him. When dinner is served, Sherlock marches to the place designated to him next to John and sits conspicuously close to him, places his hand so that it rests lightly against John’s every time he lowers his knife, pretending to ponder on an answer to James’ question.

 

And no one sees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a completely different note, you may have noticed that there is a definite amount of chapters noted at the amount there up above. This is because I have finished writing and now the fic only needs some more proof-reading and pondering before the chapters can be published. I shall do so gradually during the rest of the summer and autumn when I have the time and concentrate a bit on the other several writing projects I have underway.


	9. Flit Continually Between

They progress fast through the black keys, Sherlock offering an extra key or two when he sees that John will not perform for less. He still keeps the curtains closed and the gradual approach of spring and the sun it brings with it turns the room stifling the longer the lesson progresses. But the room is always cool and airy when John first steps in, the dust still settling anew over the floor in the corner where Sherlock is still standing with his hand on the rope.

The curtains are of heavy red silk, dark like blood, almost black and John can see the colour repeated round the apartment in the covers of the books, between the small slides under the microscope, on the stains of a butcher’s apron, in the silk of a dressing gown Sherlock often pulls on after he has let him in.

And he seems to be the only one admitted in the room. He never meets anyone else coming in or going out of the apartment, no one else seems to disturb the apparent disorder of the sitting room but Sherlock himself. He keeps a collage of his cases on one of the walls and John glances at it every so often while he plays, intrigued by the crime scene photos, by the gore he can see even under the black and white blur of the picture, of policemen standing round the evidence and once or twice even Sherlock himself and Detective Inspector Lestrade.

Sherlock must do all his business with the Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard for John never sees any sign of him either. There is never even an extra teacup on the kitchen table, always just the one with the tea already cold in it and next to it a rotten scone on a plate.

On an afternoon, John stands at the door ready to knock when a woman dressed entirely in midnight blue, lips crimson red, emerges. She is smiling seductively at Sherlock who follows close behind, unintelligible expression on his face, but her smile changes into a delighted smirk when she sees John, glances him up and down and undoubtedly knows instantly who he is. She does not say a word, only reaches up to kiss Sherlock’s cheek goodbye. John hears her talk to Harriet who he has left downstairs with the puppy once again. Her voice is velvety like the gown she is wearing and Harriet’s joyful chirps are light which they rarely are with strangers.

Sherlock’s face is like a mask when John looks at him. He turns on his heels and dashes to the sitting room where he stands waiting in front of the piano until John closes the door and sits down to play. Then Sherlock’s hands are on him instantly and he says, voice rough,

“Play what you did on the field.”

and when John does not move immediately, he digs his fingers to his sides. It makes John’s fingers fly to the keyboard and begin.

It is not the same piece and Sherlock’s fingers stay fast on John’s skin until he hits some familiar note and they relinquish. Still, John cannot remember what he could have played back then, he was so caught up in the moment, creating the music as he went on, but Sherlock’s hands stay on his waist and direct him towards the right notes, squeezing hard every time he goes further away from the intended melody, loosening his grip when he does it right.

John plays longer this time, longer than he has before. He does not dare to stop before Sherlock says he is finished. But his fingers are beginning to tire and with some dark recollection of the day on the field he changes the tempo to mark the ending. Just when he is about to play the last few notes, Sherlock’s grip turns firm once more.

“Again.”

The hands are so strong on him that John starts immediately, remembering the mistakes he made before, attempting to play exactly what Sherlock wants to hear. When he slows down again, Sherlock leans in.

“Again.”

John plays.

“Again.”

It is already dark outside and still Sherlock presses his hands into John’s waist, rests his forehead against his neck and whispers,

“Again.”

 

 

\\\

The evenings at Fenton see John attempting to read or converse with Harriet, occasionally taking part in the game of cards with Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper. Not once does he go to the piano in the drawing room.

He writes to his father. He misses him greatly but more often than not words fail him and he detests having to sit down at his desk to write lies about his life in his new home. So he takes advantage of Harriet’s occasional surge of homesickness and writes on her behalf. Harriet, though a fluent reader, has never enough humour to write down anything and so she sits down eagerly to dictate what she wants John to tell her papa. John fills page after page of how Harriet is still continuing her piano lessons, how she adores Miss Hooper, how she loves the new puppy, and only adds the necessary words covering the news of his own health.

Letter after letter leaves, filled with Harriet’s words and only a minimum of greetings from John. Harriet signs her name next to his and even her scrawny signature, written in a rush when she suddenly has to go and see what the gardener is doing with the trees in the garden, bears more sincerity than the few vague words John writes about himself.

Nothing is ever mentioned of James, other than what Harriet insists on telling, or the piano lessons with the man who is slowly inserting himself under John’s skin with his ministrations and smiling widely at James’ jokes when he comes to Fenton for supper.

They are both so deceptive. Hide their true characters behind refined behaviour and manners. Their tastes so similar with wine, tobacco, literature, the way they touch the fragile skin on John’s wrist, how Sherlock’s fingers rest on his stomach on the same spot James has had his hand the night before. He straightens his posture when the fingers slide just below the waistband of his trousers as he plays and finishes the piece as fast as he can. When he rises and turns round challengingly, Sherlock has already retreated to his corner, his eyes in the shadows, and John leaves with his head held high.

He will allow permeation but not penetration. Sherlock will not be the only one defining the rules of their interactions.

James often invites Sherlock to Fenton and John stays out of his way as much as he can. Once he hears James laugh in the drawing room and say,

“He must see so much of you during the lessons that he is quite bored with you already!”

He cannot be absent from dinner without raising suspicions or seeming impolite but even then he keeps his distance, does not look at Sherlock but directs his attention to Harriet, either scolds her for dropping her food on the tablecloth or asks her to tell Sherlock and James about the puppy she has named Redbeard, about her drawings, about her inspections in the garden.

He listens to her chatter and pretends he cannot feel the grey eyes on him from across the table.

Sherlock begins to appear at the church on Sundays and James always invites him to sit with them in the pew. The first time it happens, Harriet is sitting nearest to the aisle with James in the middle and John on his left, the rest of the pew empty. Sherlock edges in, avoiding Harriet and James’ knees easily but bumping into John’s on purpose and sitting close to him with his hand resting between them. John keeps his hands in his lap and his eyes fixed ahead. Every Sunday from then on he makes sure that Harriet is sitting between him and Sherlock.

He takes to writing the visits to Baker Street down in tally marks on one of the pieces of paper he keeps in the tin box. Doing this after each lesson he makes sure Sherlock sees every line already drawn and hears every new one pressed on the paper. Then he is gone, steps outside to the street, perhaps holds on to the sheets of music harder than necessary but loosens his grip when Mrs Hudson, Miss Hooper and Harriet meet him on the street, takes Harriet’s hand and nods at the ladies who continue their stroll down the street on their way to a friend’s for tea. Passing by a toy store, Harriet’s blabbering suddenly stops and in a flash she is glued to the window.

Among all the little _bric-à-brac_ the owner has used to decorate his window to attract children (several of which have their noses pressed against it) there are a pair of angel wings, made of real goose feathers and held on with two straps on the front. John does not need to ask which one of the several toys Harriet wants when she turns to him with pleading eyes.

“Johnny, please, please, _please_!”

John glances at the price. The wings are not too expensive and Harriet rarely asks for toys. She prefers stories and secrets.

So he nods.

Harriet screeches with joy and drags him in. When they exit, she is already wearing the wings, receiving devout glances from the young girls gathered in front of the shop and almost flies home.

She wears the wings through supper but when John comes to say goodnight and she is insisting the maid to allow her to wear them to bed as well, he takes them off firmly and promises her that she can put them on the moment she wakes up but if she wants to look like an angel instead of a plucked chicken, the wings will spend their night hanging on the wall.

Returning to his room, his eyes go to the sheets of music paper he has thrown on the small table after they had returned home. Some of the anxiety from before returns as he stares at them.

He does not need them. They are only for cover now, since he plays whatever comes to mind during the lessons. If he left home without any instructions, James would get suspicious, surprised at how fast a learner Sherlock is.

They have already had twelve classes, twice every week. John has come to detest Tuesdays and Fridays, reluctant to wake up in the mornings and to have the iron hot memory of Sherlock’s fingers on his skin for the rest of the day.

Sherlock still insists that he take his jacket and shirt off while he plays and has taken to kissing his neck and shoulders. The kisses are gentle but John can feel the hint of teeth every now and then and dreads the moment Sherlock finally gives over to the wolf inside him and bites down into John’s flesh. It would be impossible to hide such a mark from James and Sherlock knows this. So thus far he has kept his temper and his teeth behind his lips.

James enters the room with a flourish. He grasps John’s waist from behind and tugs him closer.

“How are the lessons going?” he asks, pulling John’s cravat aside to reach his collar.

John nods.

“He’s getting on all right?”

The fingers reach inside his shirt, brushing over his collarbones, touch the spot where Sherlock’s fingers have been mere hours before and John is certain James will feel the strange fingerprints on him.

He tries to hide his swallow with another nod. James takes this and his rasped breathing as an admission to slide the shirt over his head. He leans in to taste John’s shoulder and up the curve to his neck.

John lifts his posture to draw in a shaky breath, forgetting momentarily about the mirror leaning against the wall on the table. He meets James’ eyes, the brown of them slowly changes to grey, the hairline advances and falls over the forehead, black curls replace the straight strands. Hands larger than usual grasp his neck and push him against the mirror. Instead of a high-pitched register and a purring hum vibrating through the vocal folds a deep baritone sends shivers down his spine as it whispers in his ear.

“Dear thing.”

 

 

\\\

The next morning James goes to town early, leaving John still asleep in the bed, bare shoulders glistening in the morning sun, brow creased by a worrying dream. James lays a soft kiss on it and smoothes the frown away, puts on his hat and slips out of the door.

The office is empty except for him and the old clerk already dozing off at his desk, his fingers crossed over his large stomach, a droning sound of snoring accompanied by a wheeze with every breath drawn in. The ubiquitous pipe rests securely in the pocket of his waistcoat, crumbs and soot falling off it with every heave of the enormous belly.

By lunch time the office is already full of people, telegraph boys, clients, barristers and secretaries. James rises from his chair, having decided to call on Baker Street to try and find company for lunch. He passes the fat clerk having his afternoon nap with his chair leaning dangerously far back and just when it is about to fall down, one of the younger clerks sitting at the next table grips the edges of the chair and lowers it back to its legs without glancing away from his paperwork. The old clerk only snorts a little and his colleague once more takes up his pen, nodding to James as he goes out of the door.

Baker Street is busy with business and the regular crowd of a Wednesday afternoon. The front door of 221B is open as usual and James does not bother to call out to announce himself. Ascending the stairs, he catches a quiet murmur from the sitting room. The door opens suddenly and Irene Adler steps out. She only raises and eyebrow when she sees James standing on the landing.

“Mr Moriarty,” she nods.

“Irene,” he answers with a toothy smile. “Do not fret. I heard nothing… _indiscreet_.”

Irene laughs.

“No reason you should have. I assigned Sherlock’s help a while back. Someone has been killing my girls in cold blood and I want the bastard hanged. I’ve lost five in the last six weeks.”

“Ah, the infamous Tart Murders, as the papers call them!”

Irene’s eyes grow cold but she keeps her smile on and chirps,

“Well, I believe congratulations are in order. How is Mr Watson?”

“Very good, very good, in every sense of the word.”

“I should think so. The girls in Whitechapel haven't heard a peep from you in months! Nor have we seen you round Belgravia since the wedding! And unlike him,” she nods towards the sitting room, “you always came round for business.”

“The responsibilities of a married man, Irene. I keep my business at home now.”

“James!” Sherlock suddenly bellows from the apartment. “Have you come to see me or the Woman? You must already be aware that our branches of business, I am fairly certain, have nothing to do with the other!”

James parts from Irene with a last toothsome grin and she nods her head slightly before putting on her hat and strolls away with an evident swing of her hips, so natural that it is clearly an integral part of her walk.

“Lunch, Sherlock?” James throws his hat on the peg on the door and himself in the chair closer to the kitchen.

He hears Sherlock rummaging about in the bedroom at the end of the hall, clothes and accessories flying round the room and out of the door. Finally the man emerges, adjusting a red wig on his head with one hand and tapping a pair of bushy moustache to his upper lip with the other. He is dressed in his dressing gown but under it he has a pair of baggy corduroy trousers, a shirt and a pinstriped jacket that has once been clean but has most likely been dragged round the garden for it to get its new shade of dust and dirt.

“Not your usual style,” James comments, tilting his head.

“Disguise,” Sherlock mumbles with a voice deeper and slower than usual.

“So, no lunch?” James’ gaze follows him as he walks round the room, picking up small objects he stuffs in his pockets.

“I don’t eat while I’m working.”

“But a stable lad does. If you want to pass for one, you should at least have some pork grease decorating that piece of moss on your lip.”

Sherlock picks up an old apple from the window sill, raises it pointedly towards James, takes a bite and puts the rest in his pocket.

James sighs and changes the subject.

“I hear you are doing well with the piano.”

“Rumours fly fast in your direction as well, I see. I need a hat,” Sherlock turns back to the bedroom.

“I heard it from the teacher himself,” James says to his retreating back. “I’d like to hear you play.”

He can hear Sherlock chuckle.

“Would you prefer ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ or ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’? You know me, I won’t perform before I’ve mastered the instrument.”

“And still you torment me with your violin!” James sighs.

Sherlock laughs again.

“If you are so interested in hearing the piano, why not ask him to play it for you?”

James grows solemn.

“He does not play it. He does not want to touch it. Even when he walks past it, he makes sure not to look at it and never goes near it.”

Sherlock emerges again with a hat that has clearly been sat on several times and, like the jacket, has been dragged through mud and soot.

“Give it time.”

 

 

\\\

There is something wrong with the C. The pitch is too high. He should ask more for it, perhaps he could get it and another key for the price of one.

He has started to play faster pieces now. Every time he enters the room he takes off his jacket and shirt, rolls up his sleeves, closes his eyes and plays until he is delirious with the speed of it and the impenetrable darkness behind his eyelids. He does not look at Sherlock and barely registers the footsteps echoing through the soles of his feet or feels the brush of fingers and palms on his skin.

It is the stillness that pulls him out. He cannot feel the beat of Sherlock’s heels on the floor, much less hear it when he plays lower to catch any sign that the man is still in the room.

He is. Sitting in the corner on a chair, John’s jacket in his hands, nose buried in the fabric.

John flinches. He stops playing and turns round to stretch out his hand for the jacket. When Sherlock does not notice him, he stands up, tears the jacket from him and turns back to place it on the piano.

Sherlock is up, moving towards him fast like a wolf once again, grasping him by the arms so forcefully his breath catches in his throat. Tearing the shirt over John’s shoulders, ripping the fabric beyond repair, he plants his lips on the revealed skin of his chest. Twisting John’s flailing arms together to keep him from escaping, he turns and drags him towards the sofa. When John continues to fight back, he takes a hold of his waist, dodging when John kicks him, but lets him go.

“Four keys?”

John holds up his hand.

“Why five? I just want to lie.”

The hand stays up.

“All right, all right. Fine. Five.”

Sherlock lies down on his side, pats the free space with his hand, a smug smile on his lips. There is a child in his eyes and it is inviting its best friend to join in on a secret it is proud to have.

The child only disappears when John, having in vain attempted to adjust the torn shirt over his shoulders, finally lies down on his stomach, head turned away, and then there is a large hand, sliding under the shirt and over his shoulder blades. John cannot see anything of what is pressed against his back, nor does he feel the tenderness of the kisses on his skin. He only feels the wolf, lurking behind him, planting its lips on him to have a taste.

The tension seeps from him to the creature hovering over him. It stops and leans over to look at his face.

He pushes himself up before the wolf can see the fear in his eyes. It still tries to drag him back to the sofa, weak-willed, making sure its claws do not scratch his hand when he slides it away from its grip. It follows him to the piano where he stands stroking tenderly the five black keys that are now his. It bangs the lid shut, making him gasp with surprise and finally look into its eyes.

The beast stares back, expressionless but attentive, waiting for him to make another false move so it can snap its jaws round his arm. His will fails him and he turns round to pull on his jacket over the spoilt shirt. Adjusting it desperately to cover himself, his eyes are suddenly heavy and prickling at the edges. He tries to calm his breathing but cannot help the sniff. Completely powerless, utterly beaten, he looks up.

The wolf, happy that it has succeeded in making him suffer, stares at him with its red eyes. It watches as he struggles with the torn shirt and the jacket, turns with a snap of its heels and leaves without another look. The door to the bedroom closes behind it with a bang.

 

 

\\\

James finds the tallies on an afternoon while John is writing a note for him on a paper he has taken from his box. The paper he keeps the tallies on is on the bottom of the pile and the papers scatter round the table when James takes the one covered in small lines.

“What’s this now?” he chuckles. “What are you counting?”

John takes another piece from the pile, scribbles something quickly, before turning to his first message.

 _Swallows,_ the note says. _I’m waiting for summer._


	10. Ruins

“Who is this?” Harriet asks at a grave portraying an angel with his wings spread.

“My uncle. And this is his wife. My mother, my father.” James points to each grave as he explains their kinship. “My whole family is buried here, as will I one day. As will John.”

Harriet looks confused.

“Why not me?” she whines.

James takes John’s hand and leads them away from the family graves. There is a plot next to the late Mr and Mrs Moriarty, waiting for him and John to join the sleepers in the ground and John’s gaze lingers on the spot. He has been in England for four months, barely had time to get used to the foreign soil and already there is a hole in it, waiting for his bones.

Stone after stone marks the place where the sleepers he has never seen, never known, never heard of lie bound together by the roots of the trees extending themselves further and further each year, forcing the dead to lie closer together than they ever did whilst living. Like roots themselves they twine their limbs round each other, holding fast in case one of them should wish to try and reach back to the world where they have no business anymore.

So many generations living by the same rules, buried under the same oaks, their names carved on the stone, Moriarty the mightiest and grandest of all, their Christian name smaller, birth name smallest of all, barely a scribble preceding the date of birth followed by date of death.

“Only blood relations will be buried here, and their husbands and wives,” James tells Harriet. “As much as I would like you here with us when the time comes, we must find you another burial lot.”

Harriet is crushed. She gathers Redbeard to her lap and hugs it tightly.

“So Johnny gets to stay with you for all eternity and I have to be alone. Can I at least bring Redbeard with me?”

John lifts his hand to sign to her but James stops him with a laugh and takes his hand again, kisses it through the warm gloves John has put on against the sudden cold breeze.

“You are right, John and I will always be together, but not because we are buried next to each other.” Leaning down his eyes are level with Harriet’s. “John and I will be together in Heaven because we are married. As you will be with your future spouse. But you will also find us when you come there. You don’t have to be alone.”

Harriet’s eyes begin to gleam with happiness.

“And Redbeard?” she asks, putting the puppy down and watching it run among the gravestones with the singular excitement of a child that sees fresh ground for the first time after a long winter.

James squeezes John’s hand.

_‘I believe dogs are not allowed into human Heaven. But I am certain, and do not repeat this to Father Henry for he will surely have a stroke, that there is a Heaven of its own for our canine friends where they have more rabbits to chase and other dogs to play with than ever on earth.’_

Harriet, looking pleased with this, giggles and runs after Redbeard who is hiding behind a particularly small gravestone, ready to nip at her ankles when she runs past.

The puppy succeeds in its mission and Harriet screams with joy and rushes away, Redbeard right behind her as fast as it can with its short puppy dog legs. Harriet’s bonnet is undone and her scarf drops on the gravel path. John picks it up, ready to ask Harriet to show a little more dignity for the dead she is stumbling on, when her voice rises higher than before.

“Mr Holmes!” she screams suddenly.

At first John assumes she has found a gravestone with one of the ancestors of their acquaintance buried underneath. Then he sees the man with black hair and long overcoat, together with another man with equally dark hair but smoother, slicked neatly back with a comb. They are standing in front of a grave clearly belonging to someone great and powerful for the headstone is tall and bears a long inscription plated with gold commemorating the inhabitant.

At Harriet’s voice the two men have turned round and both have a unique expression on. The strange man’s is one of contempt while Sherlock looks nothing but terrified at suddenly being found gazing at the final resting place of someone he must miss greatly. Such is the air round him that one would think he has only just now returned from burying the loved one lying in the ground and not several years earlier as must be the case for no doubt the engraving has already faced several winter storms and spring rains.

They start towards them, Sherlock leaning in to whisper something to the other man who nods.

James speaks low into John’s ear.

“That is his brother. Be careful; they are exactly alike. He can read you like an open book and he has never met you before so you will offer him much entertainment. Do not try to hide your secrets, he will find them out before long.”

Hearing this intelligence makes John uneasy about meeting this stranger whose countenance promises no sympathy towards him. So he is glad James is holding his hand when they meet on the path and smiles when, after he himself has shaken the brother’s hand, James takes a hold of it again. Sherlock glances sharply at their entwined fingers and then up at John who pretends not to see the expression on his face but looks at Mycroft Holmes who is now talking to James about the wedding.

“So sorry I could not attend,” the tall man says in a tone he clearly means to be respectful. There is a coldness there, which John can hear is a ubiquitous trait of his speech used to show his superiority over the people he meets, not unlike that of his brother’s. But he clearly has respect for James, as can be seen from his eyes and his posture. He listens intently to what James has to say, eyes roaming over John when he is introduced, doubtless filing away every piece of information he can gather and placing them on the shelves of the imaginary library in his brain.

“Sherlock tells me your journey took you to Madras this time,” James says when they resume their walk on the gravel path. “Mr Holmes works for the government, he is in charge of the national security,” he says to John, whose eyes widen and Harriet signs quickly,

_‘Does that mean he sells guns?’_

John lets his left hand do the explaining, for his right is still entwined with James’.

“Only a minor part of it,” Mr Holmes assures them. “At the moment there is some talk of mutinies in the colonies and it is part of my duties to make sure they arise to nought.”

“As will your attempts to smother the said mutinies,” Sherlock looks up at his brother. “The natives are not happy how the west is treating their customs and religion. You will doubtless have more chances to go to India in the near future and see for yourself that they will do anything to gain independence.”

Mr Holmes scowls at his brother.

“Even Dickens has been wise enough to note that we British consider it to be treason to doubt that we have and are best in everything. And the man is an even bigger idiot than several of the party members sitting next to you in parliament, Mycroft.”

“Do not mind him,” Mr Holmes says to the other two. “He has this absurd admiration towards the natives and their habits. Speaks of them as they were worth something.”

James chuckles.

“If you are not careful, Mycroft, you will soon have to travel to India to collect your brother from an opium den in Calcutta. He has grown more and more vexed after my marriage. Such a horrible fate to lose one’s friends to the matrimonial institute and not a fiancé of their own to take their mind off of it! He will soon grow bored of London, I imagine, and leave to find more interesting prospects.”

Glancing at his brother, who has turned his gaze away from the party, Mr Holmes begins to talk of the alterations he ought to make to his house. The slate roof has suffered horribly in the spring rains and if he is to postpone the repair work any longer, he will surely wake up one morning with the said rains inside his house rather than outside.

They are walking in a line, the four of them, with Harriet dancing round them with the puppy. Mr Holmes has taken his place on the right side of James, who is still holding John’s hand in his left and so has forced John to walk side by side with Sherlock. The sun appears from behind a cloud, warming John’s cold fingers, and he lets go of James’ hand to tug the gloves off.

Just when they arrive at the end of the path where the Holmes’ are to take the right and James and John the left, Sherlock’s hand suddenly brushes over John’s ring finger with clear determination and purpose. John snatches his hand away, quick and discreet, and James does not see, he is concentrating on Harriet and the puppy that has grown tired and needs to be carried. But Mycroft Holmes’ icy stare is suddenly on him, his expression changed so that he looks like thunder itself, barely containing his temper and the definite disgust inside.

 

 

\\\

He presses on the F sharp and lets it ring out long and loud, echoing in the room. They are almost halfway through the black keys now.

He turns to look at Sherlock sitting in his usual corner, leaning his head on his fist. He looks beaten, tired, and John has to clear his throat to get his attention. He looks up slowly, sighs and closes his eyes like the light is hurting them.

“Do what you like. Play what you like.”

Such defeat in his voice and suddenly John regrets being so harsh towards him. He turns round to stare at the keys, head empty of what he should play. He begins to move his fingers at random, not making music but sounds that in no way fit together and instead of enjoying the chance to play he wants to finish even faster than usual and be gone.

A sudden loud thump makes him turn round again.

Sherlock is not in the room anymore. All the curtains are open and John can see the dust flying in the corner where he has been sitting, slowly settling back on the old armchair. He plays a few notes, like an afterthought, to test if Sherlock should suddenly reappear from thin air. He rises to see if Sherlock has gone to the kitchen but stops to glance at the end of the hallway.

The door to the bedroom is ajar. It had been open before.

He wrings his hands attempting to decide whether he should just leave. Clearly Sherlock is in one of his black moods. He _should_ go. But if Sherlock tries to claim a key out of his early departure? He had come, he had kept his side of the deal, but the student had not been there to listen.

He hears rustling from the bedroom, Sherlock is clearly moving about, his steps suddenly lighter on the floor. John edges closer. He can see the sliver of light from a candle in the otherwise dark room. For some reason Sherlock has drawn the curtains in the bedroom though he has kept the ones in the sitting room open to let in the bright sunlight from outside.

The door flies open and Sherlock appears.

John swirls round with a sob.

Soft footsteps reach him, arms wrap round his waist and Sherlock’s bare body presses against his back.

“I want to lie together without clothes on.”

John chews on his fingers and whimpers into the knuckles, gnawing at them so that they are red and bitten when Sherlock takes a hold of the hand to kiss the palm.

“I gave you five for last time,” Sherlock nuzzles his ear. “Would ten be enough now?”

This is too much, this test of his will. His secret wish to get away from one man is being punished by placing another even worse on his path, pushing against his back naked and full of cruel pleasure from seeing his submission.

“John?”

He feels the wolf’s claws brush against his temples.

He turns and walks past it to the bedroom. He will bear, he will tolerate. He will win this.

 

 

Harriet, who has tolerated hours of Mrs Hudson, Molly and their friends chatting and eating biscuits and drinking tea, has taken her chances at finding Baker Street on her own and set out when no one has been looking.

She still has her compass from a play of pirates years ago ( _'Pirates_ always _need to know where they are going,'_ said John and gave her his old compass to use) and she has slipped it inside her pocket in the morning in order to have something to do while the ladies compare embroider patterns. Her skill of using it has been honed to perfection during the hours and hours spent on the moors, though she would never have needed any device to point her to the right direction there.

The moors were friendly places, where one could see in front of themselves. London is busy with traffic and full of tall buildings which to Harriet’s eyes all look the same. But she is not concerned. She knows the landmarks near Mr Holmes’ house, she has her compass and soon another adventure to tell to John. She tightens her bonnet and takes out the compass, the needle pointing steadily to north. Baker Street is west and she turns left with a loud shout at a flock of sparrows dining outside the baker’s.

“Ahoy, maties!”

The sparrows startle and fly away in a hurry. Harriet laughs, facing the crowded streets with fresh enthusiasm and sets off towards the sun slowly descending behind the chimneys.

 

 

Despite the initial headstrong determination to show Sherlock he is not afraid, John’s hands are shaking when he has removed everything but his shirt and goes to open it. He grows frustrated with the buttons, breathing heavier after every failure to undo them until Sherlock’s fingers appear and begin to help him with deft movements that show he is not feeling any anxiety.

After every opened button, Sherlock’s fingers brush over the exposed skin and John shudders. He can feel Sherlock’s smile against his neck when his lips press on the skin there and move up towards his mouth.

He turns his face away.

“So kisses on the lips are not included in the price?” Sherlock asks, his voice so low and rough John cannot tell if it is disappointed or angry.

John shakes his shirt off and climbs on the bed. He sits against the headboard, knees bent to cover himself, trying to decide what to do with his hands. He does not look at Sherlock when he climbs on the bed as well, lying down on his side.

There is a silence that stretches on for so long that eventually John is forced to look at Sherlock to see what he will want next. He is resting his chin against his palm, eyes dark and deep, staring directly into John’s. Now that he has his attention, he reaches for John’s hip and pulls him down to lie next to him. John goes down, limp like a ragdoll, trying to think anything but Sherlock’s hands as they begin to explore the skin of his waist.

 

 

Harriet, having found Baker Street without getting lost once, skips down the street in search of number 221. She is very proud of herself, happy that she has gotten rid of the boring Mrs Hudson and Molly, who only like to gossip and drink tea, and is looking forward to hearing what Mr Holmes has learnt so far.

Reaching the door of 221B, she is surprised that she hears no piano playing from inside.

_Maybe they are drinking tea too. How boring!_

She opens the door, pricking her ears for any possible music, even Mr Holmes’ violin, but no sound seems to come from upstairs. She climbs the stairs quietly, aware that she is really not supposed to see Mr Holmes play when he has specifically requested only John to be there while he practises.

But the door is not locked. She peeks in to find the sitting room empty, the piano looking abandoned with the lid still open.

She hears noises from the end of the corridor. The door there is slightly open and when she reaches it she can see in between the hinges.

John is lying on the bed with a black-furred beast that is growling so low she cannot make out the words. She can see the gleam of its red eyes under the tangled fur and its nose buried in John’s stomach but it is not devouring him. Though John’s whole body is glowing red, there is no blood. It is as if the wolf is nibbling off pieces of him, making him blurt out weird noises and John’s waist is not ticklish (Harriet has tried).

But John is not in pain either or Harriet would face the beast herself. She knows her brother’s moods and tones and this voice coming out of him is not one of pain. It tingles on the tip of her fingers and on the soles of her feet. She feels like she might have heard it before or something similar to the tone, long ago, so far back in her memories that they are hazy and white and she cannot quite reach them.

The wolf lifts itself upright and turns John round. Now Harriet can see its face properly and she recognises Mr Holmes with a gasp. What a wonderful talent to be able to change into a creature like that! She has heard of people who can turn into animals by will. Or perhaps it is a witch’s spell and Mr Holmes has made a deal that forces him to go out every full moon to howl at the sky.

She wonders if James would know.

 

 

\\\

His ears are ringing and his skin feels like it is on fire so that he wants to scratch it off altogether. The brush of cotton on his chest feels heavy and painful, so horrible that he gasps out loud. His tongue tastes salty and sour from when he has touched Sherlock with his mouth.

“John.”

Sherlock is sitting on the edge of the bed in only his undergarments, buttons undone, hair wanton. His face is red and his eyes bright with the lingering euphoria, unlike John’s who is holding back tears, stumbling on the floor, attempting to dress as fast as he can.

The lupine eyes grow clear and calculating, inspecting his every movement as he roams round the room looking for his belongings.

“John.”

Trouser legs tangled under his heels, John storms out of the room, Sherlock close behind. He stumbles into the sitting room, pulling his shoes on and attempting to walk away from the man following him all at once. He almost falls down and Sherlock reaches out his hand.

“John.”

_Don’t touch me!_

Sherlock flinches back.

John stops at the piano. It is as he has left it, lid open, and he caresses the ten newly-acquired keys with the back of his hand.

Unseen by him, Sherlock’s eyes turn cold. Mouth twitching he reaches out his hand again.

But John is already at the door. He pulls it open, sees Harriet standing on the landing and stops with a sob-filled gasp. Behind him, Sherlock makes a queer startled sound.

Harriet looks at them with clear eyes, gaze flicking from John to Sherlock, giggling at Sherlock’s lack of trousers and his undone shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cheated again. Sherlock's Dickens quote is from _Great Expectations_ that was first published in 1860. It was just too good an opportunity to miss.


	11. Sleep Profound

Harriet’s chatter fills the drawing room and echoes from the walls, her laughter high and pure, so catching that the others gathered round the fire join in as well. The bowl of biscuits sits on the floor in front of her and she gulps down her tea with such force that most of it dribbles down her chin. Redbeard hurries to her to lap up the drops and Harriet lets it lick the sugar and cinnamon from her fingers. She seems almost drunk with her glowing cheeks and rabid talk. Miss Hooper offers more tea to John, whose cup is still half full, the contents gone cold.

Harriet scrutinises Redbeard’s furry paws she is holding in her palms. Suddenly, she interrupts the conversation about a recipe Mrs Hudson has just given to her friend,

“I know why Mr Holmes can’t play the piano. His paws are in the way.”

John drops his cup on the saucer with a clatter.

“His _paws_ , dear?” Mrs Hudson exclaims.

Miss Hooper’s hands push a napkin to John. Harriet rolls the puppy on its back and waves its paws in front of her face.

“Or his claws. John, what kind of claws do wolves have?”

“ _Wolves!_ ”

Mrs Hudson and the lady next to her burst into laughter and Miss Hooper hurries to offer them her handkerchief as tea sloshes on their skirts.

“Dear child, the stories you invent!” Mrs Hudson’s friend laughs, using Miss Hooper’s offering to wipe away the tears, never minding the stains on her frock.

“You best be off to the wolf’s lair then,” joins in James with his usual chuckle.

He raises his eyebrow at John’s horrified stare.

“It’s Friday,” he says, gulping down his tea.

 

 

\\\

Harriet is panting, attempting to keep up with John’s brisk pace. For every step she takes, he takes three and so she has to run in order to not lose her brother in the crowd.

John has set off with his coat undone, the note sheets squeezed tight under his arm. He never glances back towards his sister, hoping that his brisk pace would shake her off and she would turn and go back to Fenton. But she persists, threading through the crowd and the occasional carriage, running as fast as her little feet can carry her, balancing Redbeard in her arms. She is breathing heavily, stumbles on an open shoelace and collides with John’s back when he stops at the corner and sees the door of 221B.

There are several workmen, all holding a corner or a side of the piano, heaving it slowly out of the house. Their grunts turn into shouts of anger as John squeezes in behind them and almost makes them knock down the piano.

Harriet follows, her shoelace still undone, her face white.

They barge into the sitting room, John’s hands waving, fingers imitating the movement over a keyboard and tugging at his cravat, suddenly too tight round his neck.

“Your pitch is too high,” Harriet says to Sherlock standing by the grate with his violin under his jaw.

John pushes her out of the door and slams it shut. Without his interpreter he is left only with the possibility of writing, but pacing the sitting room back and forth he does not stop to pull out paper and write his words down.

Sherlock understands. He lowers the violin and moves closer to John, pulling down and buttoning his shirt sleeves.

“I have given the piano back to you. I have had enough.”

John pulls at his cravat again. He feels he will choke. Sherlock inspects him from under his fringe, taking in his rapid pace and clutching fingers, steps into John’s space and backs him up against a wall. He watches the struggle of the shaking fingers against the satin fabric, takes a hold of it to pull John’s attention to himself.

“The arrangement is making you a whore and me wretched,” he says low to John’s face.

He presses his cheek against John’s and breathes in.

“I want you to care for me but you can’t. You can’t care for anything living. You only want the cold keys to make sounds with. The piano is more of a lover to you than any living soul can ever be. Do you even know how you touch it?”

John whimpers. He listens to Sherlock’s voice, shivers at the hot gasps of air attaching themselves on his neck. Sherlock’s skin is warm and pushing against his like Sherlock wants to invade him.

His thumb comes to hover over John’s lips.

“You never give me your mouth,” he whispers. “You never let me kiss you there. You’d give away everything else before you let me have it.”

His hands rise to squeeze John’s arm and he moves so that his lips are almost touching John’s.

“They call me a machine but at least I can love. Unlike you.”

Another whimper tears free from John’s throat. Sherlock traps it with a press of hand over his glottis. His fingers are so long that they encircle John’s neck almost entirely and his hand, large and pressing directly on John’s pulse point, is warm and dry. John’s sweaty fingers are still attempting to pull at the silk fabric, brushing Sherlock’s fingers lightly with each movement.

“You hate him,” Sherlock deals his final blow. “You hate him and still you stay with him.”

A plumb tear rolls down John’s cheek and lands on Sherlock’s shirt. There is nothing between them now but raw emotion, Sherlock pressing against him, pushing his back painfully hard against the wall.

Then he is gone, leaving behind a sting on John’s throat and hand. He goes back to his violin, lifting up a dressing gown from the floor as he goes and flinging it on. He picks up the instrument, places it under his chin and says without turning round,

“It’s yours. Go.”

 

 

\\\

They return to Fenton to see the piano is already waiting for them, driven there by one of the men in a rented carriage and carried upstairs to the library with the help of the footman and some of the boys from the stables. The ladies have disappeared almost directly after John and Harriet have stepped out of the door but James is standing in front of the piano, looking down like he is not sure if he likes its presence or not, but before he can say anything Harriet exclaims,

“He’s given it to us!”

and runs to the piano and sits down. John follows, tossing his coat over one of the chairs and begins to play tunes to see if the journey has done the instrument any damage.

James stares at his back, tense and motionless that it is, and moves behind him to slide his hand up John’s spine. John straightens himself and backs away from them all.

“Why don’t you play something?” James suggests.

John waves his hand dismissively at Harriet and retreats slowly to the far end of the room. He chews on his knuckles and stares at the floor, and Harriet asks,

“What should I play?”

“A jig,” James replies absently, eyes on John’s jittering movements across the room.

Harriet looks down at the keys, at Redbeard, at John.

“Do I know any jigs?” she whispers.

“Then play a song!” James raises his voice and places his hands over the piano.

She draws in a deep breath and lets it out with a singing a.

Her voice is full of childish high-pitched hum, full of all the things John misses from his past and that always make him come closer to her and cradle her against his chest. Now, as James taps forcefully on the piano along with the music, John leaves the room. A moment later, they see him down on the path, walking slowly in circles, still biting on his knuckles and his eyes staring at the ground. He stops, lifts his gaze and stares towards the open gates and the street behind it.

 

 

 

Evening comes fast that day, measured in moments when they sit round the table and John is forced to stop his thoughts and come eat.

James finishes his coffee quickly and goes out to talk to the gardener, leaving John and Harriet alone in the room. The maid comes to the door several times to collect the tray, only to return to the kitchen to report to the cook that they are still sitting though the coffee has already gone cold and the milk is sour in the creamer. The housekeeper scoffs from her place by the window where she is sipping her coffee and keeping an eye on the gardener’s boys who are rolling their wheelbarrows too close to the late mistress’s roses. She exclaims that if they are not done when she is, she will go in there herself to collect the tray.

In the drawing room, John sits and stares at his plate. He does not see Harriet, who pours half of the contents of the sugar bowl into her coffee and drinks it all down in one gulp. Her grimaces and splutters still go unnoticed as John rises suddenly from the table, scaring Redbeard from his sleep in his basket by the fire. The house is silent as he makes his way through the hall and upstairs to the library. The door is open and the evening sun shines through the window, stretching the shadow of the piano across the room. He sits down before he has the chance to change his mind and opens the lid.

The keys stare back at him, white and black and cold to the touch when he slides his palm over them slowly, rolling his wrist as if burrowing his hand into someone’s skin.

He presses one of the keys down to reveal an inscription burned on the side of it. A heart pierced with an arrow and two initials, J and D.

He starts with a light melody, stopping after only a few seconds to look over his shoulder at the empty room.

He tries again and closes his eyes first, only pressing a few keys lightly before turning again to look at no one.

Knuckles in his mouth, he leans away from the piano and stares at the silent keys.

He cannot play anymore when Sherlock is not watching him.

Harriet has been listening to his attempts at the bottom of the stairs. She stares at him and pouts as he emerges and goes through the front door without looking at her. She follows fast, sprinting to catch him as he walks past the hedges and starts on the gravel path.

“Wait!”

She pulls at his coat tails so that the fabric almost tears. He turns round to sign to her.

_‘Don’t you dare follow me. Go back!’_

“Why? Why can’t I?” she yells, cheeks red as bricks and eyes blazing.

The servants’ entrance opens and James comes out, looking baffled as he sees John and Harriet at the end of the path, John signing rapidly, Harriet kicking at the gravel and screaming.

“I shan’t practise and I don’t care!” she howls at John’s receding back.

James starts towards Harriet, who is now muttering to herself, emphasising her words with her hands, squeezing them into fists so that her knuckles go white.

“Bugger him! Bloody, bloody bugger him! Let him fall face down in boiling, bloody mud! Let the mad dog bite him till he bleeds! I don’t _care_!”

She flinches when she sees James suddenly so close to her.

“Where’s your brother?” he calls out as he hurries to her. “Where has he gone?”

“ _To hell_!”

James tries to take her hand but she shakes free and runs away, tripping as she goes.

 

 

\\\

Sherlock sits with his head bowed and leaning against his fist, his eyes closed, when he hears steps ascending the stairs and a moment later John enters the room quietly.

They stare at one another until Sherlock stands up slowly, pushing the loose ends of his shirt inside his trousers and smoothing down his hair.

“What brings you here? Did you leave something?”

John stares at him, breathless, licks his lips, fingers twitching into fists.

“John? What is it? Does he know something?”

John shakes his head.

He moves to the middle of the floor, stares at the spot where the piano used to be, inspects the imprints of the legs that are still visible on the dusty rug.

Sherlock blinks at him, his hands hang limp by his sides until he remembers himself and points at the chair, exclaiming in a slightly high-pitched voice,

“Would you like to sit?”

John shakes his head again. His eyes move manically across the rug and stop to stare at Sherlock’s shoes.

Sherlock sways his arms back and forth, trying to decide what to do. Eventually he gives up on John doing anything first, goes to his chair and sits down heavily. He leans his head against his hand and studies John tiredly. John’s eyes finally land on his.

He looks like he is being torn apart from the inside.

“I misjudged your character,” Sherlock says. “I thought you were easy to read but you are more complex than anyone I have ever met. I fell in love with the way you play and the way you read everyone like I do. So I invited you to my home on false pretences, to see if there could be any physical intimacy between us. I thought you could see my admiration but I was wrong. I underestimated your strength. I thought you could bear this. I did not know it would cause you so much pain and for that I am sorry.”

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs. Picking up a tumbler from the table, he takes a long swig and sighs heavily.

“John, I am unhappy. Because I… want you. Because my mind has seized on you like it never has on anyone before and I can’t think of anything else. I can taste you for days after you have left. I’m sick with longing. I cannot sleep, I cannot perform any experiments, I have taken to drinking.”

He raises the glass with a small smile, drinks it empty and lowers it back on the table.

“Nothing helps.”

He rubs his palms over his face and sighs into them before continuing.

“So if you come with no feeling for me, then go.”

He glances up. John stays motionless on his spot.

“Go,” Sherlock repeats. “Go.”

He rises from the chair and opens the door.

“Get out.”

He tries to hide his face but John still sees it. A smile. This is a game for him, he knows why John is here, he only wants to test him, see how far he will go.

“Leave!”

John moves towards the door, tears falling from his eyes. Sherlock looks down, hiding the false tears.

A slap lands on his cheek.

His hair in his eyes, skin burning, he looks up at John like he is seeing him for the first time.

Another blow hits his arm. He blocks the next two and takes a hold of John, who still continues to beat him while struggling so violently that they fall to the floor.

John keeps on fighting him, fists landing everywhere he can reach, and Sherlock cradles his head between his hands to protect it from hitting the floor. John scratches him and beats his fists against his chest and arms.

He grows exhausted eventually, laying down on the floor, limp under Sherlock’s intense stare. Fingers brush his hair, no claws visible, the wolf is gone, there is only Sherlock who looks as emotionally distraught as John must look himself.

Sherlock sees the fear and anguish in his eyes now while before there has only been hatred and scorn when John has allowed himself to look him in the eye. He is afraid to face himself, having had his will locked away for so long.

John reaches up to open the tin box but his hands only touch bare skin. The box lays forgotten on the dinner table at Fenton. No paper and pen or Harriet to interpret for him he reaches his hands up to deliver his message.

He slides his thumbs over Sherlock’s nose and along his cheekbones. The face in front of him crumbles with the exquisite pained pleasure of it, John’s touch on his skin, John’s fingers sliding under his tired eyelids, his mouth and his jaw. He tries to catch John’s thumbs with his lips but they pull away and John’s hands move to explore his neck and shoulders.

He stares down at the tears still dwelling up at the edges of John’s eyes. He sees John’s soul is too far away to be reached, so he stops moving altogether, allowing John to come back to himself in silence. It is not for him to decide what will happen next, so he waits. Waits until John’s hands have touched his sides and back, slid up along his spine and back to his neck. With a deep sigh, John finally looks up into his eyes again, wraps his arms round his neck and pulls him into an embrace.

He kisses him then.

 

 

 

James arrives to Baker Street mere ten minutes later. The door open, he creeps in and begins to ascend the steps quietly. The fifth one creaks loudly under his foot and he halts to listen for voices. Hearing none, he climbs upstairs to find the sitting room empty. He turns to the kitchen, sees the table covered in experiments in disarray, a beaker broken on the floor, floorboards stained with its contents, footsteps leading from the mess to the bedroom. Eyes darkening as he notices the open door, he steps closer to look in between the hinges.

He hears them before he sees them.

John’s small frame is enveloped in Sherlock’s embrace, long arms cradling his shoulders while hands press in his golden hair. John sighs at the touch like it is something old and familiar, something forgotten and he has remembered it all anew now. Sherlock buries himself into John’s chest, rolls his face gently, savouring John’s smell and taste.

James can sense the intimacy, the _affection_ , like he is the one looking down at John’s pleasure with his hair standing up, sweat bristling down his neck and back, dripping down his nose and into his mouth.

He can _taste_ the salt.

It is like the breathy gasps coming from John have more meaning this time. James can see his eyes in the dim light and there is never such intensity in them when they are together. The gasps turn into moans, into syllables that suddenly sound almost like words when put together.

He hears Sherlock’s quiet question and John’s attempt to pant something.

“Whisper it,” Sherlock says and John grasps his face and buries his mouth in his ear.

 

 

\\\

He lies on his side, gazing out of the window while Sherlock kisses down his neck with slow languid presses of lips. Their legs are entwined over and below the sheets, the linen tying them together tightly. John wiggles his toes against Sherlock’s, happy to let Sherlock’s hand come to rest softly on his stomach and pull him closer.

They lie there and John watches the sun set slowly behind the houses across the street. He makes to move away from Sherlock’s embrace and kisses his fingers as he lifts his hands from his waist. Sherlock lets go reluctantly, allowing John to get as far the other side of the bed and pull on his trousers before opening his mouth.

“You touch the piano like you would someone you love. You want to be touched yourself. You enjoy it. But not with him.”

John turns round and crawls back to kiss his forehead.

“You had someone before.”

John freezes.

“And he left you. That is why you wanted to keep the piano, why you wanted it back so. It reminds you of him.”

Sherlock peers at him from under his fringe, John’s eyes anywhere but on Sherlock’s.

“Does James know?”

John shakes his head. He rolls away and tries to leave the bed but Sherlock attaches himself on his back, drapes his hands over his stomach and leans his jaw against his shoulder.

“John, I need to know what this means to you. Will you come back?”

Gently, John lifts Sherlock’s hands away from his hips and stands up. He begins to follow the trail of garments on the floor, picking up his own clothing as he goes, but is stopped again when Sherlock follows him to the bedroom door, draped only in the sheet.

“Wait,” he grasps John’s shoulders.

He stares intently at John, trying to see every inch of him at once. John knows he is deducing him, trying to see inside his head. The pout on his face reveals he has not succeeded and John’s thoughts are still his own.

“I don’t know what you are thinking,” Sherlock says miserably.

John smiles wickedly and moves to the sitting room to arrange his clothing in front of the large looking-glass over the fireplace. Behind him, Sherlock examines his reflection, follows John’s hands that tie the cravat round his neck and pull the jacket over his shoulders.

“Does this mean something to you?” he asks John through the mirror.

John’s glances at him briefly.

“I already miss you.”

This is rewarded with a smile.

“John,” the hands turn him round again, “do you love me?”

The only answer a fierce silence in the room, Sherlock takes John’s hand, kisses the vein on the inside of his wrist and whispers,

“Come tomorrow. If you are serious, come tomorrow.”

While John pulls on his shoes, Sherlock spots something on the floor. One of the buttons from John’s shirt, and Sherlock swipes it in his fist quick as lightning and hides it in the pocket of his trousers he picks up from the floor.

 

 

 

Sherlock leads him downstairs, dressed now in his shirt and trousers, feet still bare on the cold wooden floor. He opens the door and looks round to see if any familiar face is close by, pushes John out, hand lingering on his arm, ready to pull him inside again if the fancy should strike. But John leaves without another look and is soon part of the London crowd.

Returning to his room, a shadow in the corner goes unnoticed by the lovesick mind and when the door clicks closed James emerges by the staircase, eyes cold and calculating. He listens to the steps from the room for a moment, descends the stairs as quietly as he can, stopping again on the creaky step but every noise is now buried under the droning of the violin. He opens the front door and closes it with a look of someone who has just come from a visit to a friend’s and is about to return home. Stepping briskly in the direction he knows John must have taken to reach Fenton House, he is met by Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper who have spent their afternoon at the tailor’s, fitting the latter for her new summer coat.

“Did we not see Mr Watson a few streets down?” Mrs Hudson inquires. “Did he and Mr Holmes have a lesson today?”

James shakes his head with a pondering expression. They must be mistaken. There will be no lessons anymore. The piano has been returned to its rightful owner and the pianist himself must be hard at it now that the beloved instrument is back.

 

 

\\\

The evening finds John and Harriet in the oriental room, playing cards with rules they have invented themselves, powered by late dinner and several glasses of wine on John’s part, some drops of which have been placed into Harriet’s glass when no one has been looking. Harriet’s cheeks are glowing and she is giggling at any nonsense John invents for her amusement. She is soon falling off her chair but is caught by James who emerges out of nowhere, to Harriet’s pleasure and John’s surprise.

“Do you not think, young lady, that it is time for puppies and children to go to bed?” James asks her, eyes glued to John.

His hungry gaze gives John a greater fright than the sudden appearance of his husband had. He has come to expect that look, he knows what follows it, but is surprised of its sudden intensity.

Harriet giggles and squirms in James’ grasp.

“I am not the least tired, brother! And you called me a lady just now. Ladies are not children.”

“Being a lady or a gentleman is measured in your behaviour, not in your age,” replies James and lifts her back to her chair. He stands above her, stroking her hair and looks down to her face now. “If you wish to be a lady, you must do as your brothers wish and go to bed when it is clear that you are falling asleep standing.”

Harriet turns to John and signs rapidly,

_‘He thinks I am a baby and cannot take a few drops of wine!’_

_‘You_ are _a baby.’_

“What is he saying?” James asks, eyes again on John.

“He says I can stay up as long as I want!” exclaims Harriet.

John shakes his head violently and expresses his reprimand to her with a sign James also will understand.

_‘Upstairs.’_

Harriet protests weakly but when the maid is called, she collects Redbeard and kisses both men goodnight. When the room is empty except for the two, it suddenly seems to close up on them. The fire draws nearer, the windows grow darker and James’ figure looming over John seems to reach the ceiling.

James’ hand in his hair is gentle like it was in Harriet’s.

“Shall I kiss you good-night?”

 

 

 

In their bed, bare except for the thin cotton shirt he wears at night, John suddenly sees deep red lines on his skin on the back of his thighs, clearly left by Sherlock’s eager fingers earlier that day and a minor detail to be thought of before. He brushes his hand over the scratches and his breath rasps at the coarseness of the skin. Reaching his hand towards the night stand, he snuffs out the candle.

 

 

\\\

Mrs Hudson has arrived with Miss Hooper and taken charge of the refreshments that are to be taken to the oriental room. Between tea and scones and conversation about the weather, John has seen a chance to excuse himself and retreat out of the room. Harriet’s babbling follows him to the hall, where he sneaks towards the front entrance, glances behind his shoulder and opens the door quietly.

Beautiful summer weather greets him as he steps out. The sun has not reached his corner in the room with its little windows, and for a moment he is blinded by the light. He stops to listen to the noises from the oriental room and pulls the door closed. As he descends the few steps towards the gate, James appears from behind one of the thick fern trees.

John stops with a shocked gasp, eyes widening at the sight of James with his lips tight and fists clenching, staring at him as if ready to attack. He starts fast to his right, James close behind, trying to reach the south gate before James’ long legs can catch up with him on the path. But when he reaches the old south entrance, he can see from across the lane that it is futile to try and get out through the gate.

For the first time since his arrival the golden doors are closed and locked with chains.

James appears from behind the hedge and John goes for the only open door in sight: the small wooden gate the servants use to access the kitchen garden.

He stumbles down the stairs to the empty garden, James’ steady steps ringing in his ears, runs to the opposite side of the garden and through the labyrinth of hedgerows back towards the house.

James catches him after the first turn.

The gravel turns slippery under their feet and they fall to the ground. John gasps at the pain when the thorns of the hedge dig into his palms as he tries to take a hold of anything to keep himself from being pulled down but James’ grasp on the back of his coat makes his hand slip and he loses his balance.

James is instantly on him, slowing down now that John has no means of escaping, straddling his legs and pushing his arms firmly to the ground. He touches his nose to John’s temples, sniffing his hair, his cheek, his neck.

It is as if he is looking for something and he must find it for he grinds his teeth and pushes John’s legs apart.

“You are mine,” James snarls. “Mine, mine, _mine_.”

John tries again to struggle away now that his hands are free and drags himself on his knees. Fingers are tearing at his clothing, trying to push the fabric of his overcoat aside to get to his shirt. John trips and is pressed face down to the ground, his shirt collar ripped back so that the hands are free to attach themselves on his neck.

In the garden behind the hedgerows, Harriet is calling for them and Mrs Hudson’s timid voice joins in.

“John! John! There is a letter from papa!”

James huffs and buries his face into John’s hair. It is hard to breathe properly. James’ weight on his back and his face against the ground almost stops the airflow to John’s lungs and James is huffing against his neck like he is running out of oxygen himself. The morsel of energy John has left from the sudden fear of his husband is now directed towards the change in his appearance.

He recognises the claws on his shoulders, feels the tangled fur brush against his neck. From the corner of his eye he can see the red gleam of the enlarged eyes.

It is almost comforting to know the old Beast has returned, always ready to tear his will apart.

Harriet bursts through the passage just when John has hauled himself upright to stand against the hedge. He cannot look any better than James who is still breathing heavily with a mad glint in his eyes. He takes the letter Harriet is holding before John can reach out for it, tears it open and after a moment says,

“Your father has died.”


	12. Shriek To The Echo

John sits motionless on the bed in the blue room while James bolts and locks the door. Harriet, exhausted from shedding tears over the news of her father’s passing, does not argue when she is told to sleep next to her brother for the time being. James does not trust her not to try and aid John escape in the middle of the night, even though she is much too young and small to lift any of the wooden boards James uses to bar the door from the outside by placing them on two iron holders.

Though she knows John has done wrong and the bars are a punishment for it, she seeks comfort from her brother who is equally broken down by the news. Gradually her cries die down against John’s neck and she falls asleep on the covers.

The windows in the bedroom are also barred and bolted with iron to let the daylight pour in the room between the bars. James carries in the piano from the library with the help of the smith’s simpleton apprentice. He pays the boy for his silence and trusts his intimidation to be assurance enough that the lad will not speak of anything he has seen in the house.

The boy gone, James turns to look at the motionless man on the bed, staring into a mirror Harriet has left behind the day before.

“Admiring yourself?” he asks, sitting down next to John. He begins to play with the straw-coloured hair, toys with it so that it catches the afternoon light that makes it shine golden.

“You look astonishing like this, locked up in your tower by an evil spirit, waiting for me to save you,” he leans in to place his lips against John’s jaw.

John turns away to lie on the covers with the mirror still clutched in his hand. He reaches up with the other to brush his hair behind his ear and caress his cheek. He hears the door bang closed, the bolt slam into place and the key turn in the lock. Moving closer to the mirror, imagining silver eyes in place of blue, he kisses his image softly.

 

 

\\\

That night the house awakens to intense piano playing. The more God-fearing servants cross themselves and press their hands together for the music drifting from upstairs sounds like the player is possessed by the Devil.

James jumps up in his bed, scrabbling for matches. It feels like the music is washing through his body right to his soul and even the light of the candle does nothing to change the atmosphere. He opens the secret door to the bedroom and peers at the two shadows round the piano.

The smaller has a candle in her hand and she is smoothing the hair of the one sitting at the piano, swaying from side to side in time with the music.

Harriet turns her head slowly towards the light when James walks closer, her silence and staring eyes perfectly fitting the ghoulish music and the trancelike movements of her brother.

“He’s asleep, look,” she whispers and waves her hand in front of John’s face. “One night he was found in his night clothes on the road to London. Papa said his feet were cut so badly, he couldn’t walk for a week.”

Her voice sounds strange, distant and dark, her accent suddenly strong and almost unintelligible.

James shines the light in John’s face. His eyes are half-closed, the white of them visible between the lids, his mouth slightly open, sweat gleaming on his neck and forehead. Harriet smoothes his hair back with languid strokes, like she knows precisely what is happening inside her brother’s head and she is not too worried about it.

“Take away the light,” James tells her, putting out the candle he is holding. “I will take him to bed. You can sleep alone tonight.”

Harriet takes the candle away with her through the secret door and they are left alone. The darkness seems to snap John out of his trance and his hands fall limply to his sides. James goes round the piano to pick him up and carries him to the bed, then walks to the door Harriet has gone through and makes sure it is locked.

John, asleep and breathing quietly, looks like a stranger on the bed. James lights another candle and shines it at the relaxed features, searching for what it is that makes John look so alien. The light rouses the sleeper and he blinks up, mouth partly open. For a second, he seems to be looking at someone else and James remembers his expression from when he saw him with Sherlock. He wants to burn the tenderness off of those eyes when it suddenly turns into a focused, calculating stare and he is looking at the John who fears him, hates him.

“Do you dream of him?” he whispers.

John’s fingers reach for his face but he stops them and grasps his wrist, wax from the candle dripping on the thin skin. John gasps and tries to pry his hand loose but James holds on, pouring more wax on John’s fingers.

“How long has it been?” he asks, burying his cheek in John’s hair, watching the hot wax drip on John’s trembling hands. “How long have I been touching you, when all the while you have imagined someone else in my place?”

John tries to shake his head. James places the candle on the table, dibs his fingers in the wax, lowers his hand over John’s stomach.

“Don’t you like me?” he asks. John’s reply is covered by a spasm as the wax-coated fingers connect with his skin.

 

 

\\\

They are having their tea in the drawing room when Mrs Hudson and Molly knock on the door. They are on their way to town and cannot stay for long, just to discuss the news from Baker Street.

“We stopped by at Mr Holmes’,” Mrs Hudson clucks as she takes off her bonnet. “House full of crates and boxes, even the science equipment have been packed away.”

She crunches her nose at James’ surprise.

“Did you not know? He is leaving London. God only knows where he will go! Most of the boxes were addressed to his brother so I believe he will take as little luggage as possible.”

Her eyes follow John, who has stood up and is leaving the room.

“So Sherlock is going away?” James asks.

“Just as well,” Mrs Hudson answers. “Molly has a foolish infatuation for him.”

James looks at Molly in her corner, sniffing into a lace handkerchief, eyes red and puffed from a clearly longer period of crying and moaning after her girlish fancies that are now crushed.

“Stop it, child,” Mrs Hudson says to her. “You are making yourself look ridiculous.”

Her speech is buried under the piano played in full volume upstairs. They all raise their eyes to the ceiling, James secretly pleased at the sound of a melancholy tune, Mrs Hudson crunching her nose again at the discourtesy, Molly with a hiccupping sound of discomfort at such a strong expression of emotion.

 

 

 

On their way home, Mrs Hudson (who unlike most of the ladies of her age and fashion still uses her feet to move in-between visits in order to keep herself astir) slows down from her usual pace to draw Molly’s attention to her. She takes a look at the window she knows to be the bedroom of the strange husband of her friend and sighs.

She cannot see the bars that isolate this strange creature from the outside world and from certain other friend of hers and so does not stop to consider why such measures should be taken in keeping him indoors.

“He is a peculiar one,” she muses.

“Ma’am?” Molly asks, dropping her handkerchief from where she has hidden it inside her sleeve.

“That husband of James’. Such an ordinary looking man, such an ordinary name, and yet when you meet him and talk to him – well, as much as you can speak with a person with no voice – there is this strange feeling that he knows more than you do. It is almost supernatural how he seems to look through you.”

“But Mr Holmes does the same thing,” pipes in Molly. “He looks through you with those alien eyes and can tell you your every secret, making you feel so bare ---“

Her voice trails off.

“Molly, you are making a fool of yourself again,” Mrs Hudson says sternly, glancing at the window again. “No, it is the playing as well. He does not play the piano like you do. It is strange, like a mood that passes into you. Now, your playing is plain and true and that is what I like. To have a sound creep inside you is not at all pleasant.”

There is a small stone on the path of Molly’s shoe and she tries to kick it but instead almost trips on it in her frustration.

“Now, you compare him to Mr Holmes and I must say I sometimes hear it when he plays pieces that must be his own work, for I have never heard of such tunes composed for the great opera houses of Europe. And yes, he can see through you but that is only logic, as he himself has explained. And while he always speaks his mind, Mr Watson hides behind his muteness and does not even attempt to communicate what he feels.”

“Then they are a right pair!” screams Molly, “for Mr Holmes never reveals his emotions either! No, he hides them under that layer of coolness and composure that could fool anyone, but not me. Underneath he is starved, starved I tell you, for affection and touch! And he never lets anyone _close_ enough to provide that touch ---”

She closes her mouth with a snap and takes the handkerchief from her sleeve again, blows her nose in it. Mrs Hudson, who has paid little attention to this outburst in respect of her niece, turns to look at the window for the last time before it disappears behind the large chestnut trees on the driveway.

“A right pair indeed,” she tuts.

 

 

\\\

John wakes up to the boards being torn away from the door in the morning. Next to him, Harriet stirs slightly but continues to sleep, her thumb hovering near her lips. The last bang is followed by a silence, then a jangling of keys and a moment later James enters the room, looking dishevelled and as if he has not slept at all.

“I have decided to trust you,” he says, eyes like glass.

He approaches the bed and stares down at John who tries not to show his nervousness under the cold scrutiny. He can smell alcohol on James’ breath.

“If I leave the doors open, will you go to him?”

John shakes his head.

“Do you swear?”

Reaching out his hands, John beckons him closer. James sits beside him on the bed and John brushes his hair away from his face and smoothes the strands back. He takes a wash cloth from the basin on the night stand and dabs the feverish hue away from James’ face.

The fingers on his neck do not make him flinch, they do not. Nor do the lips pressed first into his jaw, then his cheek.

“Promise me you won’t see him anymore.”

John soothes the trembling of the shoulders with his hands (James’ shirt is really in the need of ironing) and nods against the raven hair.

“We are going to be happy, John. So happy.”

John nods again, continuing to sooth the shaking shoulders until James grows calm, stands up and walks out of the room. Listening for a moment for the noises of stairs creaking, footsteps shuffling, door banging, he is up and hurrying through the door himself, stopping at the window on the landing to peer outside. James is walking through the garden towards the stables, dragging his feet slightly, arms tight against his sides and hands in fists.

John rushes back to the bedroom and closes the door quietly so as not to let any of the servants know he is awake and come running to make sure if he is in need of anything. Redbeard, his nose flat on the ground, looks up at John from his spot on the rug and begins to tap his tail like a whip when he sees him approach the bed, thinking her mistress will finally be woken up.

But John does not stop at the bed. He goes directly to the piano, opens the lid, crouches inside and reaches in to detach one of the keys. Next he takes a large darning needle from a sewing box Mrs Hudson has given Harriet, lights a candle and using the needle as a pen by blackening it in the flame engraves a note on the side of the key,

_Dear Sherlock, you have my heart, John Watson._

He kisses the key once and wraps it in a handkerchief he finds from the dressing table. He climbs on the bed to shake Harriet awake, assisted by the puppy tired of all the sleeping and is licking her face eagerly. Harriet sits up with a smile when she is handed the parcel.

_‘Take this to Mister Holmes. It belongs to him.’_

Her face falls. She looks at the puppy rolling round on the bed sheets, chasing invisible enemies and John can see the open admiration she has come to feel for James. His attempts at signing his orders are faced with determined words and immovable hands.

“We’re not supposed to visit him,” she says sternly.

She places the parcel next to her on the bed and focuses her attention on the puppy. John lifts her up and shoves the parcel in her fist. He gives her her yesterday’s dress and makes a demanding gesture with his hands. Pouting, Harriet pulls on the dress and crawls under the bed to find her shoes. Her toy shop angel wings are hanging from a nail on the door. She grabs the wings and slams the door shut after her. John can hear her bang her hands against the walls and jump on the stairs as she goes.

She leaves through the front door and takes the right to walk down the lane. The sun is already bright in the sky, making her squint at the light. She only goes as far as the end of the chestnut tree drive, looks behind her and when she sees John is not looking out from any of the windows, turns round and goes back to the front entrance, through the grove and down the steps into the garden. She begins to skip towards the stables, singing The Grand Old Duke of York as she goes.

 

 

 

She finds James from one of the stalls, preparing a horse to go to town. He glances at Harriet when she enters but thinking she has come to see the Shire horse goes back to tightening the saddle belts.

Harriet offers him the handkerchief.

“Johnny said I should take this to Mr Holmes, but I don’t think it proper.” She begins to unwrap the parcel. “Should I open it?”

James spins round.

“Give it to me,” he orders.

Handkerchief in hand, he turns away from Harriet and takes out the piano key. He reads the inscription slowly and lifts his face up to the sky. Harriet wonders at his expression. It looks like James is suddenly praying.

He turns abruptly and stomps away, Harriet close behind.

At the wood shed, he picks up the axe one of the gardener’s boys has forgotten on the block and storms inside through the servants’ entrance.

“You are not supposed to run with sharp objects!” Harriet yells behind him.

The footman and a serving girl coming down the hall both freeze at the sight of their master and retreat in a hurry into the dining room. They escape to the closet and lock the door behind them but press their ears against the wood to listen to two pairs of footsteps storming upstairs, the lighter ones accompanied by a child’s distinct pitch whining how it isn’t fair.

 

 

\\\

The fingers smoothing the wrinkles from John’s shirt feel stubby and too tanned. The owner smiles at the thought that soon they will be Sherlock’s pale violinist’s fingers, opening the garment in a hurry and later buttoning it up as slowly as possible, lingering on each ivory nub, lips on slivers of skin as he works his way to John’s neck.

He lifts his gaze to the mirror from the hem he has been tucking in his trousers. Behind his reflection he sees James, his overcoat on and his shoes muddy, and wonders if it has began to rain.

Next he sees the axe.

Staggering away, he misses the blade just when it smashes the mirror to pieces, one sharp slice showing John’s horrified expression, another James’ manic rage, before they hit the floor breaking into hundreds of smaller pieces.

“I trusted you,” James snarls.

John runs to him when hurls the axe at the piano in the corner. A hollow boom sounds below the cherry-coloured wood when the blade strikes it and sticks on its edge. Without attempting to wrench it loose, James grasps John by the arms and shakes him round the room, howling,

“ _I trusted you, I trusted you!_ ”

John is loose like a ragdoll in his grip, his fists trying to hold on to James’ shoulders, tearing at the fabric to hold himself upright. James’ eyes are full of tears, anger and hurt mixed together hideously in them, always blazing cold and now red with emotion. His voice breaks.

“Why do you make me hurt you?”

The backs of John’s knees connect with the side of the table and he is bent backwards over it. The air escapes from his lungs when James presses him among the papers and books, hovering over John’s neck, whimpering,

“We could be happy.”

John cannot help but shudder under the cold lips. James snarls at him and throws him across the room. He wrenches the axe off the piano and grasps John by the waist. Head spinning from the hit against the wall, John barely puts up a struggle, only recognising his surroundings when James’ boots hit the wooden boards at the back door.

The cook and kitchen maids, who have not heard the noises before now, stare in horror from the kitchen doorway as their master drags his husband towards the back door, the latter trying to grab at something to hold on and pull away. They are followed by Harriet, who has been observing the scene in silence from the moment she has stepped in the bedroom and seen her brother’s head connect with the wall.

Outside, the drizzle has turned into a downpour and all three are soon soaked to the skin but none of them feel the cold. James walks through the sheets hanging worthlessly outside in the rain, turning to drag John loose when he tries to scrabble for the linen to make James release his grip. The embroidered sheets fall to the muddy ground and are crushed by Harriet’s heels when she hurries after them towards the woodshed.

Hitting the axe on the block, James turns to stare at John. Nostrils flaring, breath rising out in puffs of steam from his mouth he grasps John by the arms again, screams,

“Speak!”

John stares at his throat, the bobbing Adam’s apple and the red blotches colouring the pale skin.

“You lied to me! Speak or not, you will answer for this!”

Eyes falling on the block, John shakes loose from James’ one-handed grip when he goes for the axe. James grasps him by the back of his shirt, forcing him down on the ground. Scrabbling for anything to hold on to, his arms flailing manically, James’ arm goes round his midriff, the other to his throat. Choking, he is dragged back, his face pushed against the bark of the block and pinned between it and James’ leg. His right arm is twisted up, fingers stretching desperately on the block.

James picks the axe and holds it over John’s hand.

“Do you love him?” he screams through the rain, twisting John’s wrist painfully in his grip. Rigid with fear, John is unable to move, his left hand holding on to James’ leg, compulsive twitches shaking him and his eyes glazed. He only sees Harriet, standing close, soaked with the rain, her angel feather wings flopping behind her.

She looks so beautiful like this.

“Do you love him?” James repeats.

As the axe falls, Harriet screams,

“He says _no_!”

and John’s blood spatters her face and neck.

 

 

 

It does not hurt at first, he has been too paralyzed by fear to feel anything but relief now that James finally lets go of his arm. He staggers up, unconsciously protecting his right hand with the left. Eyes wide and staring, he turns round to look at James and Harriet, like ghosts in the rain. He looks blinking up at the sky, tries to sharpen his focus on the world round him. It is raining, yes, but he cannot hear it through the noise of ragged breathing, barely feels it on his cheeks.

His hand is bleeding into his shirt, the warmth seeping through the thin cloth. He turns his head, trying to hear through the sharp unsteady gasps if he is screaming yet, finally howling at the pain that has overtaken him. There is nothing but silence and the breathing he now recognises as his own.

He straightens his posture, hides his hand deep in his chest as he turns round and starts to walk away to the general direction of Baker Street. Falling down on his hands and knees in the mud, staggering back up, he takes a shaky step, another, and finally folds down on his knees, bleeding hand buried in his shirt.

Harriet, neck and dress covered in John’s blood, takes a tentative step towards him. The rain washing over them turns scarlet as it slides down her face. Her voice breaks when she whimpers his name.

Behind them, James takes John’s finger from the log, wraps it in the handkerchief and gives it to Harriet.

“Take this to Holmes,” he orders. “Tell him that if he ever comes near him again, I will chop the rest off, one by one.”

Harriet takes the cloth covered digit, surprised at how similar it feels to the key she was carrying before, only smaller.

She looks at her brother, rocking mechanically back and forth, his hand dying his shirt crimson.

“John...”

“Hurry!” James screams and she starts to run.

 

 

\\\

It was a disaster, the whole morning. No witnesses to the murder and even if the idiots in the Metropolitan Police had not missed everything as always and trampled on the evidence, the rain had made sure he had found nothing surrounding yet another murdered and brutalised girl they had found in an alley round dawn.

They are making their way back to Baker Street, Sherlock and Lestrade, their intention to go through the police records and Sherlock’s notes once more in order to try and find something new. Sherlock has sent his homeless network on yet another search round the city the moment he has heard about the new murder but so far they have not been able to find out anything about the previous murders and he is not expecting too good of an outcome this time either.

A bottle rolls in front of his feet, pushed out of a bin in an alley by a scrawny yellow cat that digs its nose into the garbage with a loud purr. Picking up the bottle, Sherlock hurls it against the wall, scaring the cat out of its wits and spitting on its heels when it rushes over the fence at the end of the alley and hisses at him. He hisses back and the cat disappears with a whoosh of a bushy tail.

Lestrade sighs but Sherlock ignores him. Digging his hand into the pocket of his coat he feels for the button he is carrying with him. It is like he can feel John’s warmth through the dry, cool surface and he squeezes his fist around it so that his nails dig into his palm.

He wants to touch him. He aches for it, aches for him, but John had not come. Better to let it be and just leave. But he has to solve this one before he goes, he cannot leave the murderer to wander free and kill more, there are too many bodies already.

Around them people are hurrying along towards any shelter, searching cover from the rain. The wind is rising constantly, the torrent beating down mercilessly and flooding the streets. Sherlock steps into a deep puddle and sinks in ankle deep. Cursing, he takes off the shoe, pours half of the water out before tossing it against a nearby wall. He continues to limp towards the end of the street and behind him Lestrade picks up the shoe before the street urchins can get a hold of it. They turn round the corner and Sherlock’s eyes light up. There is a grey form cuddled up on his doorstep in the rain. One of his homeless come to give him information on the case. He feels for shillings in his pockets when he stops abruptly, recognising the figure.

Lestrade’s voice behind him is a distant thought when he sprints the last yards, steps to Harriet and touches her shoulder gently.

“What has happened?”

To his horror, the girl begins to cry. Loud and wringing sobs shake her as she clings to Sherlock, drapes her arms round his neck. Lestrade has caught up with them now and opens the door to the house to allow Sherlock to carry the howling girl inside.

Inside, Lestrade begins to fuss with tea and brandy to make Harriet warm again, while Sherlock sits with her on the sofa, all the while attempting to get answers out of her. She opens her fist and pushes the handkerchief to his chest. He opens it in confusion just as her screams turn into words,

“You are not to see him again, he’ll chop him up!”

Sherlock stares at the finger, never hearing the teapot crash on the floor as Lestrade enters the sitting room and sees the bloody digit as well.

Gathering himself, Sherlock shakes Harriet and snarls,

“Where is he? Tell me, where is he?”

Blind with panic, Harriet cries louder and wrings herself out of his grip. She runs towards the door but Sherlock catches her by the waist and turns her round.

“What did he tell him?”

“Sherlock, for God’s sake, let the child go!” Lestrade yells behind them but Sherlock shakes Harriet and repeats,

“What did he tell him?”

“He chopped it off!” Harriet’s voice rises over both of theirs.

There is a sudden silence in the room. Sherlock all but drops Harriet on the floor where she stays sobbing until Lestrade picks her up and carries her to the sofa, shushing her quietly and stroking her hair.

Sherlock clenches his fist against his mouth,

“I’m going to crush his skull,” he breathes biting down on the knuckles.

“No!” Harriet cries out. “No, no, no! He’ll chop them off!”

Lestrade hugs her tighter into his chest and cradles her back and forth. Harriet sobs against his shirt and shivers when Sherlock strikes his fist against the wall, an unearthly howl rising from his throat.


	13. Shadows Wander Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Sharon and Roxy for reading, correcting and encouraging. You were invaluable!
> 
> The poem quoted in the end and used as names for the chapters is by Thomas Hood and called Silence.

The rain clouds have darkened the sky above Fenton House so that it is now almost black. No light can be seen inside the house, except the small gathering of candles in the kitchen where the servants are huddled together, discussing with low murmurs about what they are to do. They fear their master’s wrath. He has shown what he is ready to do and none of them dare to leave the house.

They discuss the events of the morning over and over again, each adding their own condiments to the story as is the habit of servants when they talk gossip, colouring it with events even more gruesome than the ones that have actually taken place so that if any of them had enough courage to go and call for help, they would all have had a different story to tell. But all agree that their master has gone mad. They saw his eyes when he carried Master John inside, the small body covered in mud and blood, lying still like a dead man.

Outside, the wind continues to howl and the rain to beat against the windows with a terrible force, making the large trees outside creak dangerously. Upstairs, James has locked himself in the bedroom with John, who is huddled in bed, his right hand wrapped in bandages, fever making him moan and gasp into the pillows.

James is pacing the room, glancing at the form under the blankets every so often, listening to the wind gaining speed outside, howling and moaning in the chimneys and rattling the windows.

“You cannot do that,” he gasps. “You cannot send love to him, you cannot.”

A whimper from the bed draws him closer.

“You are supposed to give it to me.”

He touches John’s hair.

“Why don’t you want to give it to me? (Oh, darling, you are too hot.) I meant to… I was meant to love you.”

Dragging his fingers against John’s temple, down his cheek and to his jaw, he searches for the string of the tin box of paper John always has round his neck to write sweet little notes for him. He doesn’t remember having taken the box away from him when he had stripped John down to his undershirt. Below the shirt, the skin between John’s thighs is soft and warm as always, even hot now that he is sweaty with fever.

James leans in to kiss a drop of sweat away.

“You know,” he murmurs into the skin, “I could do this. I could be this to you. If only you let me.”

John swallows difficulty and thrashes at something with his healthy hand. James slips his fingers under him.

“Is this how he does it to you?”

John feels boiling inside. James thinks fleetingly about the ice in the pantry and how he should fill the bathtub with it if John becomes worse.

“Does he even prepare you, or just _take_ you? As if you were _his_ ,” he hisses, crawling over John, kneeling in front of him and lifting John’s thighs over his knees.

John’s eyes flutter open and he stares up at James. There is such a mixture of kindness and understanding in them that James’ fingers go to hover over his lips.

He can hear him, John’s voice is inside him, silent but distinct.

“What?” he asks quietly.

John’s mouth opens slightly and James bends his head lower.

“What?”

 

 

\\\

They can do nothing, Lestrade had said, before they hear what James wants.

“He has John there,” he had whispered to Sherlock after Harriet had been put to bed. “He is a hostage now, James has means of keeping him inside, hurting him if he feels threatened. You might never have been in a situation like this but I have. And one thing we must not be is rash.”

The storm howling outside and Harriet’s clothes and his own shoes drying by the hearth keep dripping water on the floor in a patter make Sherlock’s thoughts drop like clumps of wet clay from the walls of his skull. They all take the form of small man, hunched down, covered in blood.

Fortunately Lestrade had taken the finger with him to Scotland Yard. Sherlock could not bear to see it again and after Harriet had woken up twice to a nightmare, he was thankful that the bloody parcel was as far away from her as possible.

Sitting by the fire, listening to any sounds from the bedroom and the dripping of the wet clothes, he buries his face in his hands. He cannot concentrate.

A creak from the door rouses him. So deeply has he been lost inside his head that though he has not been able to form a coherent thought, he has missed every sound but the dripping of drying clothes, the rain outside and the occasional whimper from the bedroom. He has not heard the door downstairs open and close, he has not heard the stairs, and now James stands in front of him, shoes muddy from the rain, eyes gleaming.

He has a rifle in his hand.

Sherlock glances quickly at the bedroom where the light still shines. Harriet had insisted on it, afraid of the shadows in the corners of the strange house.

_Please, God, don’t let her wake up._

“Don’t worry,” James whispers. “I have not come to hurt the child. Nor you for that matter.”

He places the barrel under Sherlock’s chin.

“Look at me.”

They stare at each other in silence, James’ eyes roaming over Sherlock’s face, his head turning from side to side.

“Oh, look at you,” he finally breathes out. “It’s your face. I have had that face in my head, hating it. But now I’m here seeing it, it’s nothing. You look at me through your eyes, yes. Those eyes... You’re even afraid of me.”

Clearly Sherlock wishes to argue, for anger, more towards the insult of him ever being afraid of someone else, someone like James, flashes in his eyes. James presses the gun deeper into his throat.

“You are afraid. If not for yourself, then for the child. Or for John.”

The light of anger goes out in Sherlock’s eyes and is replaced with a flash of horror.

“Oh, yes,” James whispers. “You don’t have to worry, though. He is unharmed.”

“You chopped his finger off with an axe,” Sherlock snarls.

“Merely clipped his wing.”

The gun lowers and Sherlock can breathe properly once more. There is a slight creak from the bedroom, Harriet turning in her sleep. Sherlock hears her snuffling into the pillows, hopefully dreaming of something other than the events of the day. He glances at the gun now hanging loose in James’ hand.

“Sherlock…”

His eyes are met by a maniac’s stare.

“Has John ever spoken to you?”

“You mean in signs?” Sherlock asks, confused.

“No, words. Actual words.”

“No, not words,” his answer lingers. He does not like where this is going.

“You never thought you heard words?”

He shakes his head.

“I heard him here,” James taps his forehead. “I heard his voice. There in my head. I watched his lips, I had my fingers on them, my own lips on them, they weren’t moving, they didn’t make the words.”

“You punished him wrongly,” Sherlock says, eyes full of disgust. “It was me, my fault. You know how good I am at manipulating others.”

James looks as if he does not hear him or that his voice and words are not important to him. The manic glint in his eyes grows more alive the longer he speaks.

“He said, ‘ _I am afraid of my will, James. Of what it might do, it is so strange and strong. I have to go, let me go. Let Sherlock take me away, let him try and save me.’_ ”

The gun is still hanging weakly in James’ grasp but now there is a slight tremor in his hand and the gun rattles slightly with each shake. Thus far, Sherlock has not been calculating any means of escaping the possible change in James’ mood and the gun perhaps suddenly being directed at his head again, ready to fire. He has not dared to contemplate on a plan and now it is farthest of his thoughts. Now he sees James wants nothing but to be rid of it all.

“I wish to leave,” James says quietly to the floor. “I can’t stay there, I don’t want to stay there. He can have the house, I don’t care. I only want to get away from there.”

He draws in a shaky breath and looks at Sherlock once more.

“Take him, he is yours. He always has been, I think. At least he was never mine.”

 

 

\\\

It has been raining constantly for weeks and it is the first beautiful day for a long time as John steps out of Fenton House, his arm in a sling, movements slow and groggy, eyes staring under drooping eyelids at the end of the path where a coach is waiting.

Mrs Hudson and Miss Hooper are there to close the doors after them. Mrs Hudson is tutting and repeating what a terrible shock it has been, Miss Hooper sniffs in her handkerchief, eyes red and puffy. She nods at everything Mrs Hudson says, not hearing a word as she follows John’s slow descend down the steps to where Sherlock and Harriet are waiting on the sunny road.

Harriet is standing as close to Sherlock as possible, Sherlock’s arm draped over her shoulders, his fingers caressing her cheek as she sees John and sniffs.

The servants carry John and Harriet’s trunks into the awaiting coach while Sherlock speaks to Mrs Hudson, turning round every once in a while to instruct with the loading. John stands by the wall, resting against the warm bricks, Harriet waiting and fidgeting slightly by his side. With a last nod, Mrs Hudson takes her leave with Miss Hooper and Sherlock turns his full attention to the two waiting for him. John looks exhausted, bending slightly over his bandaged hand. Harriet stares at the ground, afraid to look at her brother. Sherlock walks to them briskly and stops in front of John who looks at him like he is surprised to see him.

Safe on the street, away from the house and its gaping windows, Sherlock pulls John against himself and stares into his eyes. People are walking past them, undisturbed by the two and Harriet standing with the puppy in her arms. It senses the intensity hanging above the three and whimpers. Harriet hugs it tighter, fighting the urge to grab John’s unharmed hand and seek comfort from her brother. She knows something important is being decided between the two.

Sherlock looks at John, eyes glued to his, trying to read from them what John wants.

He feels it is no use, he has to ask.

So he takes off his hat and with an air of complete submission he peers deeper into the face hiding under a tuft of unruly hair constantly being tossed round by the wind. He sees something warm glint there, in the bottom of John’s eyes, and when John does nothing to protest, he kisses him. John kisses back, not fervently but still like he never wants to let go. They pull away, the warmth still there, a clear confirmation of John’s reciprocity. Sherlock feels he can breathe again.

He turns to the coachman waiting by the door, takes John’s healthy hand to his right and leads him and Harriet to the coach, climbs in and the driver bangs the door closed behind them. Through the window, Sherlock instructs him to drive to the harbour fast as he can. The man nods, jumps on his seat and flicks the reins.

“We are not going home?” Harriet asks, squeezing Redbeard to her chest.

Sherlock glances at John sitting quietly next to him on the carriage seat. Clearly homesick and exhausted, wishing nothing more than to be back in her father’s house in Scotland, Harriet seems to echo his emotions once again. The months spent at Fenton are suddenly washed away, and the house is just a house, home once again their birthplace in the moors.

“I have sent Mycroft ahead to take care of the estate for now. We are going away for a while, just so that your brother has time to recover.”

Harriet strokes Redbeard’s back.

“Are we going far?”

“Only across the bay. I want to show Paris to you. I will tell you about all the murders that have happened there and you can try and deduce who committed the crimes.”

Something akin to a smile flashes across Harriet’s face and she turns her full attention to Redbeard, cooing and kissing its face. Sherlock takes John’s hand and leans to say low in his ear,

“We will return the minute you want us to but let me take care of you for now. You are not ready to face your father’s death.”

John closes his eyes at his voice and leans in to have Sherlock’s mouth brush a kiss against his temple.

“We will take the piano with us. I do not want you to be separated from it again.”

 

 

\\\

John and Harriet watch Sherlock march back and forth on the cobblestone streets, talking to people and waving his hands in the air, accompanied with angry shouts. Redbeard, still securely in Harriet’s arms, sniffs the fresh sea air excitedly, tail tapping against Harriet’s dress at the sight of so much at once.

The harbour is in complete disarray. The weeks and weeks of storms have severely harmed the breakwaters and several of the boats used to deliver passengers through St Katharine’s docks to the open sea and the awaiting ships. There are people standing everywhere, waiting anxiously for a journey they have waited for a month to finally begin and all round the harbour they are fighting over boats, tickets, luggage, amount of passengers a boat can carry.

Sherlock stomps back to them, cheeks red with anger.

“Our ship won’t leave without us, that’s for sure. But they don’t have enough boats to carry the passengers through the docks. We have to take a lighter one and I’m afraid it won’t hold the piano.”

He looks at the monstrous instrument standing next to the rest of their luggage. John stares ahead to the distance and says nothing.

After an hour, a sailor approaches, informing them that a boat is ready to take them to the ship. He grows pale at the sight of the piano but Sherlock insists it come with them. He will not hear of the piano going on a separate boat. It travels with them or not at all. The sailor clearly would be more than glad to tell him where the piano can go but says nothing, grabs a hold of a trunk and begins to carry the luggage to the boat swaying gently in the ripples.

Lestrade has come to see them off. He shakes Sherlock’s hand, wishing him all the best and promising to keep London safe until he returns. Sherlock scoffs at this but keeps a hold of his hand until Lestrade grasps him by the shoulders and embraces him tightly. Next he goes to Harriet, kneels down on the ground and taking hold of her hands whispers something in her ear. She glances at John and nods solemnly.

Last he goes to John. He waits for John to look at him before he grasps his healthy hand in both of his and gives him the same heartfelt handshake he did the first time they met. He does not embrace him but keeps his hand in his for a long time before nodding and releasing it with a final squeeze.

The sailor and Sherlock help John to step into the boat and Lestrade lowers Harriet and Redbeard (that has suddenly decided it is not liking this after all) in Sherlock’s waiting arms. She retreats to the back of the boat with the puppy and stares eagerly as the sailor loosens the rope and takes the oar to push them clear from the quay. He begins to row towards the open sea, Harriet singing quietly to herself, Redbeard whimpering, Sherlock and John sitting in the bow, separated from the rest by the piano tied to the sides with ropes.

They watch Lestrade stand in position until he disappears behind the boats attempting to squeeze through from the dock and row out to the sea. Their boat, heavy with the weight of the piano, is soon left behind by the small vessel carrying the rest of their luggage. The ropes supporting the piano squeak loudly. Sherlock squints at the ship still far away in the distance and frowns.

“Idiots. They didn’t have to stay so far. Do they think the rest of the breakwaters are just going to fall on them?”

He looks to John who is staring at the swaying piano, eyes dreamy and distant. Sherlock grasps his hand and squeezes. John squeezes back lightly before letting go and beginning to sign to Harriet who signs back with a look of surprise.

“What does he say?” Sherlock asks her eagerly.

“He says to throw the piano over-board.”

Sherlock glances at John before answering.

“It is quite safe.”

John begins to shake his head and Harriet raises her voice,

“He doesn’t want it. He says it’s spoiled.”

A big wave makes their boat jump. Harriet sways and falls down.

“I have the key, we can have it mended,” Sherlock pleads John, pulling the key from his pocket.

John pushes it away and signs rapidly, eyes full of panic.

“It reminds you of them, doesn’t it? James and the other.”

The hand stops.

He has seen the engraving, John can see it in his eyes, from the stern look he gives him, like he can finally read his thoughts and does not like what he sees.

“It reminds you of them and as long as you have the piano you are chained to it. And to them.”

John’s expression is suddenly that of deep hate and Sherlock gasps, reaching his hand out towards him. John stands up and begins to tug the ropes holding the piano fast on the boat. The sailor shouts at him, but Sherlock merely stares for a second. He never wants to see that look again, so he takes a hold of John and says,

“Fine, we’ll throw it over.”

John flops back down next to him, and the sailor and Sherlock begin to loosen the ropes. The sudden movement makes the water splash over the sides, wetting John’s trousers and the sling holding his hand. The coolness of the sea feels so comforting suddenly and he lowers his hand to brush his fingers over the surface.

How nice it must be, to be a fish.

Several of the other boats, having delivered their passengers on the ship, are now returning to the dock. People are standing on the deck, leaning against the railings leisurely, waving at the retreating boats and the new ones moving slowly towards them. John looks at them and then at Harriet who is trying to sit up, grunting to herself and cursing the boat.

They have now untied the ropes and are lowering the piano into the sea. The water almost surges over the side when the boat tilts, John’s whole arm now under water. It is like an invisible power is pulling him towards the lapping tides, suddenly almost touching his nose when the boat tips for the final time and the piano falls with a great splash.

The rope that has been holding it is still in a coil on the bottom of the boat, and the weight of the piano is fast dragging it towards the water as well. Thinking nothing, John places his foot in the loop just when the piano pulls the rope tight and with a sharp guttural gasp he is torn loose from Sherlock’s fingers and pulled under.

 

 

 

He falls down, on and on, towards the bottom that lurks surprisingly far away in the darkness. His hair, long that it is now with his weeks of recovery and no chance to have it cut, sways in front of his eyes and above his head like seaweed. The bandage comes loose round his finger and a fish, unafraid of his sudden plunge into its home, nips at it, loses interest and swims away. A low hum seems to rise from the darkness where the rest of the ocean kingdom is awaiting him, waiting for the piano to come down with a silent boom, waiting for him to sit down before it and play and play and play.

Down and down he goes. His eyes get used to the dark and the water fogging his view. He can see the blue, green and white shades of the ocean, the cool and calm of the water. Releasing the last lungful of air, he suddenly feels heavier and the cool water is a painful pressure over his chest. He looks round in rising worry, blinks at the inviting emptiness of the ocean, reaching away beyond his sight.

 _No_.

He bends down to try and loosen the knot round his shoe. The coil has wrung itself round his foot, like it has no other task but to drag him under with the piano to play for the fish.

(He knows just the song for them. The quadrille David taught him how to play. They will like that.)

The knot sits tight, chewing on the bones of his ankle. He can feel the fibres of it biting to his skin, determined to keep a hold of him. Not like he has the need to fight it, or the strength. The water is beginning to fill his lungs with its cool grip and suddenly he feels the surge of panic that rises when one is about to drown. He has experienced it once, as a boy, when he fell into the well in the garden of his father’s house.

But with panic comes realisation. He is about to die, has longed to die for so long, but suddenly it is out of the question. Looking up at the sun that is barely visible through the masses of deep blue water, he thinks of Sherlock and Harriet and the life he will have with them on Baker Street. He wants to keep living or without him Sherlock will surely choose death as well.

There is no obligation, only the desire to see Sherlock again. He begins to kick his shoe loose, the rope biting deeper into his ankle even through the leather (surely it is drawing blood?) but he hates it now, does not trust it to drag him down into coolness and peace but to misery and loneliness.

He kicks once, twice and his foot comes loose. He does not stop to look as his shoe drifts down, still attached to the rope, and is soon swallowed by the darkness. He begins to pull towards the light, clothes heavy with salt water, the coldness of it bristling on his skin he pulls and pulls.

The sun draws closer and closer, he reaches it with a final pull, breaks through the surface and draws in a shaking breath. Suddenly, there is movement all round him, shouting and people jumping into the water to help pull him back to the boat. He lets them drag him, feeling the light of the blessed sun on his face.

Fingers grasp his wrist, fingers so familiar, hands so warm and firm round his waist.

 _Sherlock_ , he greets with an exhausted smile. _What a death! What a chance! What a surprise! Can you believe it? My will has chosen life?_

“Yes, my love,” he hears Sherlock whisper in his ear. Harriet’s hands are on his face, her hot tears wetting his eyelids and cheeks all over again while the sun shines over them, peaking in turn behind both of their heads as they sway with the movements of the boat. No need for warmth, there is light instead of darkness and there is Sherlock, speaking against his temple,

“You had me spooked, but now you are back.”

_+_

_We never went back to Fenton House. After we returned to London, Harriet and I moved to Baker Street. I teach piano now in a studio Sherlock arranged for me in central London only a short walk away from home. We have had a metal fingertip fashioned for_ _me_ _. I’m quite the town freak, which satisfies._

 _James never divorced me, and I guess it was his final revenge. We have not heard from him since and perhaps in time, when he is assumed dead, Sherlock and I can marry. But in the eyes of the society I still belong to another, and in the beginning most of my_ _students_ _were more interested in seeing the prosthetic finger and the_ _man_ _who lives in sin outside his marriage. In time, they grew bored when they understood my muteness was not in fact a charade and they left having gotten nothing out of me. Some_ _have stayed_ _and they are genuinely interested in music instead of horrid gossip._

 _But I am learning to speak. My sound is still so bad I feel ashamed. I_ _practice_ _only when I’m alone and it is dark._

_\\\_

_He is there again, walking in the garden, supporting himself against the wall, a cloth over his head so that he can pretend no one can hear him_ _practice_ _. He is afraid of the harshness of his own voice. Compared to his piano he finds it so horrible he has to cover himself and pretend no one is there to hear him._

_It is too easy to go through the back door, lean against the wall so that when he reaches me, his fingertips will brush against my chest instead of the brick_ _s_ _, making him slow down momentarily before continuing in normal pace. I won’t let him get far but grasp his arms and spin him round against the wall. Kissing down his face over the cloth I peak under it to see his eyes are closed but he is smiling._

_I would like to pull the cloth over my head as well, to hide us both in the darkness and kiss him under it, like in secret. But it is his world under there, his safe haven is still the pretence that no one can see or hear him under there, not until his voice is tuned to perfection and he can emerge with a new sound that will surely resemble that of his music._

_And then again, there is nothing to hide anymore._ _I can pull him out to the sunlight and kiss him in plain sight in our garden until he is breathless._

_\\\_

_Though the ever-increasing smog of central London makes it hard to see and seems to surround everything with strange echoes, the nights here are somehow clearer. Summer has arrived again and I am finally able to hear the voice of my will clearly inside my head_ _. I prefer this to the deafening silence I have come to associate with the bad memories that still fill my mind from time to time. Harriet has her room upstairs and sometimes I can hear her whimpering. She has nightmares. They appear less frequently than they used to but sometimes they are_ _so_ _vivid she wakes up screaming. Then I run to her and rock her in my arms until she falls asleep again. She is happy now but I don’t think she will ever completely forgive herself._

_In our bed, I sometimes lie awake, watch Sherlock sleep and count his breaths. I slide my metal finger over his bare back, making him chuckle gently and slide closer to me. He never shudders at the coldness of the steel, he knows it is me, a part of me at any rate. Even through the cobwebs of dreams he will know my finger is brushing over his spine and he will smile and drape his arm over me._

_Like Harriet, I have nightmares but they are bittersweet and comforting. Sometimes I wake up, feeling for a second like the dreams in which my piano lies buried in its ocean grave and I myself am floating above it are preferable to the reality. Then I turn to my side_ _to_ _see Sherlock’s dark form lying next to me and I remember._

 _But the images of the dream follow me into the sunny garden in the morning and as I watch Sherlock and Harriet busy themselves with the many flowers they have planted together in the small garden we have I remember my dreams again and let myself drift_ _off_ _to them. I close my eyes and see the piano and my weightless corpse over it, hovering like a ghost. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby, and so it is; it is mine._

 _I have not been able to capture it myself,_ _the tune,_ _not on the piano. Sometimes when Sherlock plays his violin I hear a note or two that so closely resemble the_ _song_ _of the ocean that I stop to listen. It passes fast, only a second or two, and then it’s Bach again or Vivaldi, all those composers Sherlock loves and who give him comfort._

 _Surprisingly, while music has been inadequate in describing my feelings about this matter, I have found comfort in words. I have read nearly every book Sherlock has_ _in_ _his shelves and these words in particular have caught my attention:_

There is a silence, where hath been no sound.  
There is a silence, where no sound may be.  
In the cold grave -- under the deep, deep sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Afterword from the author. Since you already got your epilogue from John.
> 
> This has been so much fun! And excruciatingly painful! And tear-jerking! And head-banging! And everything else that fanfic-writing usually is but since I love the original story, the beauty that is the film The Piano, as much as I do, this has been three times everything writing usually is. It has also been hugely interesting to dig into the Victorian lifestyle and language and try to mimic that in writing. Funnily enough, the film’s language is not how I usually see Victorian speech styles portrayed in Dickens and Hardy and the lot and in a way I appreciate that very much. They had a perfect setting for their characters which is why I chose to place mine in similar environment as well. An important aspect of this portrayal is also how it was not acceptable for the women of the time to act out of the ordinary, be inventive and independent, be expressive or different in any way. Reading essays on the interpretations of the film, reading the film script, watching bits of the film together have all been better than just using one of the sources on their own, especially when deciding how to portray John. The complicated bastard is so hard and so rewarding to write and since he is the main focus here, he had to be perfect.
> 
> It is not easy to transform the portrayal of one person’s submission to that of the other, but after writing for a while I really began to grasp how similar Ada and John are. Ada submits because she wants back what is hers, John submits for the same reason and because of his filial duty towards his father. I am sure many disagree on my portrayal of James, how he is not psychopathic enough, evil enough to mirror the inherently naive Stewart. However, what else can be as manipulative, psychopathic and tormenting as a husband like James? True, Stewart’s greatest fault is his naive belief that he, as the husband, controls his wife even though there is no physical connection or any kind of affection between them. James controls his husband purely through the physical connection. Ada in the film takes advantage of the lack of any sexual aspect in their relationship to try and gain power over Stewart, while John never has the chance because of how James uses him for his own pleasure from the beginning and so he turns this into a sexual affection with Sherlock, a complete opposite of what he has with James.
> 
> But John is not weak and that’s why he was so intriguing to write! How do you portray the submission of someone who is being robbed of his body by one person and of his voice by another, never allowing either of them to take more than just one, never both, and keeping control of himself all at once? Jane Campion did it. I hope I did too.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Silence (Alternate Cover)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3613431) by [Belladonna1185](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belladonna1185/pseuds/Belladonna1185)
  * [Silence (Cover)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3613452) by [Belladonna1185](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belladonna1185/pseuds/Belladonna1185)




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